


Spin, Constellations, and Fall

by soraflye (flitterfly5)



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Fantasy, Fate & Destiny, M/M, Romance, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5226401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flitterfly5/pseuds/soraflye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lonely boy wishes for a friend. A laughing star trips from his orbit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spin, Constellations, and Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted on LJ.  
> Disclaimer: This is all fiction. I am not in any way associated with J&A or Arashi.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
  
Twelve-year-old Nino squinted through the slosh of rain against his face, an eyelash prickling uncomfortably into his barely open eyes. Why did it always have to be raining? He peered resentfully through the whipping rain curtains blustering across a wet greyness that obliterated the world and watched as they broke and scattered furiously upon trees, fences, poles and finally upon himself, buffeting his already drenched figure as if he really was nothing but the bundle of twiggy limbs his mother always sighed over.  
  
_Does it ever stop?_  
  
Next year would be his third in this town, but Nino didn’t think he’d ever get used to this dreary wetness. This moldy, everlasting feeling of—  
  
“Rebound, swivel, aaaand  _dunk_! Yeah!”   
  
A triumphant cry shot up amid the noisy splatter of rainwater and like magic, Nino’s sullen mind was arrested by a hazy, flood-like warmth. The ecstatic intruder of his thoughts bounded right up to his face and popped a tattered old basketball into his hands, grinning cheekily in the downpour.   
  
“Did you see that, Nino?” He mopped a hefty load of water off his brow, the smile undimmed underneath. “I  _dunked_! With my hand right on the basket, straight up dunked! I don’t think I’ve ever jumped so high before!” There was a giggle full of pride, the kind that was always just out of Nino’s reach, and a bony elbow nudged against his waist. “It’s Nino’s turn now! Come on, I want to see you do it, too!”  
  
Nino highly doubted that he could pull it off, but the other boy’s enthusiasm seemed to have infected all the muscles in his body, and his worn sneakers were already splashing their way across the concrete to where the net swung wildly high above their heads.   
  
He bent his knees and leapt, the wet basketball firm against his fingers. And then he promptly fell back down into a puddle, the ball bouncing away in heavily damped arcs as his eyes blinked up to meet the other pair through the continuous haze of grey rain.   
  
_Fail!_  
  
Their laughter echoed through the swish of rain, raucous, uninhibited.   
  
From then on, they often played basketball in the rain together. Nino and Aiba. Aiba and Nino. Though most of the time, Nino would still be shivering and hunched over, trying to forget the cold, while Aiba ran circles around him, laughing and shouting things that were mostly lost in the swing of the downpour. Nino had thought on several occasions that perhaps he ought to let Aiba know that he didn’t even _like_ basketball (he’d always been more of a baseball guy, really), but then Aiba would do something, like jump or twirl or even just stand still and smile, and Nino’s sharp tongue would immediately stick to the roof of his mouth like a globby wad of gum as his paralyzed mind realized again and again that for Aiba—always, for  _Aiba_ — it wouldn’t kill him to pick up a new sport.   
  
And sport, for Aiba, meant basketball. Oh for sure, Aiba liked basketball. Especially in the rain. He liked leaping into the air with the glittering droplets splattering onto his face, and landing with a splash as his worn sneakers met the uneven concrete of the public park.   
  
“It’s like flying through a meteor shower,” he’d laugh, and Nino’d think,  _what an odd boy._    
  
Though his thoughts never stayed coherent for long, because when Aiba laughed (and he laughed a lot), well… there was just nothing  _quite_ like the sight of a teenage Aiba Masaki laughing in the rain. Nino could see it so clearly, the wet cheeks, upturned, the joyous mouth, giggling and panting all at once, the heaving chest, with every detail and ripple outlined clearly by the soaking thin T-shirt plastered tight against his body. Every part of Aiba would be so full of energy, like he was some young bud shooting from the soil, like every slash of rain over his body was just a refreshing shower, a shot of life that he imbibed and transformed into boundless spurts of energy.   
  
It had Nino gulping down his misery and all his memories of the freezing drafts that came through the floorboards of his room back home and just watching it all, wide-eyed, because sometimes, he just couldn’t believe that Aiba was real.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aiba was dribbling an ash-colored basketball in the rain.   
  
_Another miserable day_ , he sighed as he flopped down after another layup, watching the ball bounce off the rim and splash dejectedly into a puddle by his feet.   
  
Another fight. Another dispute over the dinner table. It wasn’t his fault that he kept forgetting things. He couldn’t help it if he got distracted easily by the shape of a soap stain or a curious warble from the oak tree in their garden. It was just how he was. Forgetful. And he had been forgetting things ever since he was born.  _Where_  was he born? Aiba couldn’t even remember that. Who were his parents? He could never answer that question either. Where did he grow up?   
  
_I…I don’t know_ , he had teared up the first time his husband asked him that.  _Somewhere rainy. Very, very rainy._  
  
The grim lines of Sakurai Sho’s face had softened at that, and all Aiba remembered were the muscular arms curling around him and the warmth, so much warmth as the deep voice kept repeating in his ear, “It’s okay, Aiba, it’s okay…” He had fallen asleep, and the last thing he heard before losing consciousness that night was Sho’s low murmur over his skin:  
  
“You have me now, Masaki…”  
  
Aiba picked up his rolling basketball with another rainbeaten sigh and glanced up to the window of their bedroom, where he knew Sho would be frantically trying to lose himself in his swamp of documents. As usual.   
  
_Do I still have you, Sho?_  
  
_Or will I wake up tomorrow morning, with no memory of you whatsoever?_  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino didn’t know how Aiba managed to sneak out from his house, wherever that was, or how he suddenly ended up sitting in the tree outside the shabby housing project that the Ninomiya’s lived in, but one night, as he drew up his flimsy blinds to peer out into the cloudy landscape, he saw him, long legs and shining eyes and inhumanly merry smile and all. Nino’s jaw dropped.  
  
“How the hell did you get up there?” he hissed, half excited, half terrified. It was way past his bedtime, and if either of his parents walked in now, he’d be  _so_  grounded.   
  
But Aiba only smiled, a little impishly, and held out an inviting hand.  
  
“Does it matter?” he said simply.   
  
Nino could already feel his senses reeling to the magical heat of Aiba’s twinkly presence. Without thinking, he took Aiba’s hand and clambered onto the leafy boughs beside the boy.   
  
“How’d you know I needed you?” he asked breathlessly, when they had settled upon a sturdy, knotted fork in the branches. He’d never liked heights.  
  
Aiba shrugged, completely unperturbed by the climb.   
  
“I had a hunch,” he said. “They’re fighting again, aren’t they?”  
  
He pulled Nino closer so that they both fit on the widest part of the fork, and didn’t remove his hand even when they got comfortable.   
  
“Thanks,” whispered Nino, and he clenched the fingers tight, tight, and tighter until both their hands turned white, because it was already late, and he was afraid that the world around him didn’t belong to the reality he knew anymore, afraid that the magical bubble with Aiba on the tree would soon burst into nothing but soapy echoes, leaving him bare and exposed to the angry voices in the kitchen he had just escaped. Not that the voices ever knew he was listening or yelled at  _him_ directly, but sometimes Nino wished they would. Because then, at least he’d be able to see his own parents for more than just a ‘good morning’ in the morning and a ‘good night’ at night. And at least then he’d be able to see an emotion other than the veneer of fake cheer over pity that was always on their faces when they remembered to lean down and look at him.   
  
As if to reassure him, Aiba gave a low, cooing whistle, and nudged Nino to look up at the clearing sky. The clouds had rolled away and the stars were popping out one after the other as the two of them sat there, side by side, hand in hand, leaves at their backs and wind in their hair.   
  
Nino stared at the elusive twinkles that studded the night, his thoughts rearing and speeding along the starry tapestries that flowed from horizon to horizon, full of bright-eyed desire to escape, to leap and to fly into the beauty far above the screeches of the drab world below. Beside him, Aiba was humming some unknown tune, the long legs once again swinging languidly in the cool breeze of the night.   
  
“Aiba,” he whispered, still mesmerized by the view above. “Do you ever wonder about aliens?”  
  
Aiba didn’t answer, just held his hand tighter and grinned up at the constellations with him.   
  
Another light breeze danced across their skin, and the two boys leaned closer instinctively. The taller boy shifted, still humming his strange tune, and Nino felt his cheeks tingle as their joined hands were brought to rest against a slow, steady heartbeat. Withdrawing his gaze from the starry wonderland above, he turned it to Aiba, to the shining chocolate eyes and the place on that bony chest where their hands were clasped together.    
  
_Aiba just knows, he always knows; when I need him, how I need him, and just exactly when the very act of speaking becomes unnecessary._  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Drips and scrapes. Wind against plastic. A tattered flag whipping against its pole.   
  
Aiba kept walking, through the wet pavement, over the little cracks and bumps where water had stagnated in the concrete. There were houses all around. They looked faintly familiar. But then, a lot of things looked faintly familiar to Aiba. He wasn’t very good at remembering details, after all.  
  
He wished he was. He wished he could see every moment of his life as clearly as Sho could. He wished he could remember the exact smell of roses on their wedding bed (did they even have roses that night? Sho said they did, but Aiba couldn’t recall their shape or color). He wanted to feel again the first rub of Sho’s nose on his neck, of Sho’s teeth smiling and giggling and then moaning out loud against the curve of his nipple. He wondered if he would ever feel those things again.   
  
_Probably not,_  he thought dully, stepping over another puddle.  _I’m probably going to die with no memories of ever being loved._  
  
Aiba wondered if there was an afterlife like the people in that funny building with the pointed tops had said there was.   
  
He shivered as a wet blade of grass tickled his ankle.   
  
_Well, if there is, I bet everyone there would remember their wedding nights. I bet they’d trade stories about rose petals and champagne and all that happened over them. It’s a night that’s supposed to stay with you forever, after all._  
  
Aiba closed his eyes and tried very hard to recall the first time his Sakurai Sho-chan had taken him to bed. It was fruitless. He tried then to recall the _last_  time he had fallen asleep against the sturdy chest of his husband. Fruitless again.   
  
He ran a long hand through his hair and sighed mournfully at the equally forlorn sky. The clouds parted slightly, and a ray of sun escaped them like an answering sigh upon his lips.   
  
_If I can’t remember, then does it mean it didn’t happen?_  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Winters in Chiba were cold, so very cold, and Nino never understood his parents’ decision to move from their old home in Tokyo to this freezing skeleton of a house on the outskirts of town. Surely there were other places where his parents could find work cooking and cleaning for some back alley restaurant? Perhaps places with hearths and heaters, like his grandmother’s old house…   
  
Nino had always favored the indoors, where there were walls to protect him and quilts to embrace him, and doors to slam shut when he didn’t feel like talking, which was most of the time, to be honest. Nino especially liked walls. He liked how sturdy they were back in his grandmother’s home; they had made him feel safe, and even here in this makeshift home, he liked how they managed to act as a shield, thin and flimsy though they were. All he had to do was turn the corner, disappear behind one, and he could be spared the discomfort of having to deal with whatever human interaction awaited him with his family. Because it was always so much easier to hug one’s legs to the chest and get lost in a good manga than it was to field his parents’ questions about making friends and doing well in school.   
  
But it was impossible to think about things like the cold and school when Aiba was right next to him like this, tugging on his hand and whining to go to the movies. Nino sighed, only partially out of exasperation, and gave the intrusive hand a little squeeze.  
  
“Let’s go, then.”   
  
There was an immediate squeal of victory from Aiba, and Nino was bounced unceremoniously from his seat by what seemed to be a newly birthed whirlwind of limbs, cloth and hair.   
  
“We can still catch the 5:30 showing if we hurry.” Aiba was breathless, his feet stumbling over the mouth of his sneakers as he tried to jam them on while zipping up his jacket  _and_  looping his bookbag over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind missing the previews, that is. You-you don’t mind, do you?”   
  
Nino smirked.  
  
“Not if you’re paying.” He flicked the decorative tassel on Aiba’s bag, watching as the beam re-entered his friend’s eyes.  
  
“Of course I am,” Aiba laughed agreeably, and tossed Nino his coat. “I always end up paying, anyways.”  
  
“You love it, so shut up.” Nino opened the door, grinning, and not even the icy wind that blasted through both their thin bodies could extinguish that little dancing flame that had suddenly sprouted up inside him.  
  
When their four dirty sneakers leapt from the bus and raced across the cracked granite of the parking lot, Nino felt a hot arm collide into his own. And then, five warm fingers grappled with his wrist before finally lacing them in between his own pudgy ones, pulling him forward so they could both reach the shelter of the theater sooner.   
  
Surprised at the public display of intimacy, Nino shot his friend a questioning look. Aiba just laughed some more and pulled him closer.   
  
“I’m paying for you, aren’t I?” His chocolate eyes twinkled mischievously. “The least you could do is let me hold your hand in return.”  
  
Nino could only gape dumbly as the other boy pressed a saucy kiss to his cheek before pulling him into the cinema.    
  
_God, this is a date, isn’t it?_  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
When did Sho begin losing interest? The question often came up in Aiba’s mind. Like a secret termite worming and gnawing its way through the innermost recesses of his brain. When did his embrace start cooling, his voice start growling? Aiba often wondered.   
  
_When did this ring start growing loose on my finger?_  
  
He kicked away a stray stone on the sidewalk, and frowned at the worn tongue of his sneakers.   
  
_Does it even matter?_  
  
The sun was setting; he could just see the last rays of its light gleaming through the leaves of an ancient-looking tree. A tree with bent boughs and strange red fruits that grew in tight clumps. Aiba pinched one from the branches and popped it into his mouth.   
  
_Ugh_ , he shuddered.  _So sour._  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
When did he first meet Aiba? There were several versions of it in Nino’s head, and he could never decide which one ought to be the truth.   
  
Sometimes, he’d be utterly convinced that their first encounter happened in Chiba, right after his parents had received that hysterical call from his homeroom teacher.   
  
“Where  _were_  you, Kazu? Why didn’t you go to school?” His mother had fussed and held him in a suffocating hug while his father had looked grim. “We were out of our minds with worry… Don’t ever do that again, you hear me?”  
  
He had been sent to his room, and Aiba was just  _there_  on his windowsill, swinging those long legs with the excited air of a puppy about to meet its new owner.   
  
Nino frowned a bit. Was that really how he met Aiba?   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Cold.   
  
Aiba remembered the cold. Only vaguely, and only sometimes, but he was quite certain that he knew the concept of  _cold_. It was like one of those many things that felt familiar but he could never recall learning, like something that had been soaked into him in a previous life that he neither lived nor remembered.   
  
Cold happened most often in the winter, especially when Sho-chan had to go outside. It made him want to layer parka over parka and then bundle up in a long black coat that tightened around the waist like an hourglass. It also made him extra fond of scarves. Aiba had learned to knit scarves in the winter, and with every loop he fastened around his husband’s neck, he felt the cold lessen. It was almost like magic.   
  
Cold was like magic.   
  
It made his Sho-chan’s teeth chatter like a fuzzy little rabbit’s and those stately legs knock together like one of those wobbly-boys at the arcade. Aiba would giggle when that happened; some weird force would pull him towards Sho, and at those moments, it’d always feel right to wrap both arms around him as if he was a starfish and Sho was his bait. He had seen that before, the starfish and the bait, back in the aquarium two blocks away from their home. The five arms would suck against the glass of the tank and hug the bait tighter and tighter, until it settled down snugly right in the star’s middle and the star slowly took it into its heart.   
  
Except starfish didn’t have hearts. Sho-chan had said so, and Sho-chan was always right.   
Aiba rested a cheek in one hand and looked over their kitchen counter to where his husband lay half-asleep in front of their take-home movie rental.   
  
Was he cold? he wondered. It was winter after all, even though they were indoors, and he had checked to make sure all the windows were closed.   
  
But Sho was sprawled out there with his shirt untucked and half his belly exposed. There was definitely no  _layering_  of clothing going on there, so Aiba didn’t bother going upstairs to grab their spare comforter. He just finished scrubbing the last of the countertops, and then hung up his apron on a neat little hook that Sho had hammered into the wall just for him.   
  
The ending credits were already rolling by the time he was done, and his husband was gently snoring to the tinkle of the cheesy theme song.   
  
Sighing, Aiba knelt down so that he could feel the light breaths brush across his smooth, unblemished face.   
  
“I thought we were supposed to watch the movie together,” he murmured sadly as he rolled straight the shirt to cover Sho-chan’s abdomen properly.   
  
His husband stirred, nuzzling the air in his direction, but Aiba didn’t notice, and Sho’s head soon flopped back to the other side of the pillow, away from the light. Away from Aiba.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It was Valentine’s Day, and Nino had just spent a sizable chunk of his _otoshidama_  on a box of chocolates, one of those real ones from the boutiques that actual adults went to (as opposed to the little sweet shops that people  _his_ age frequented). His father had told him a very long time ago that it was a box of chocolates which had made him notice Nino’s mother for the very first time, and that Nino’s very existence could probably be traced down to those few heavenly drops of creamy, melty goodness.   
  
“Chocolate’s like a love potion,” his father had told him, smiling in a way that he rarely did anymore.   
  
Nino had remembered those words as the season of romance neared and the smell of chocolate practically wafted out of every street corner. His mother wasn’t very often home these days; his father had said it was because of work, but Nino knew it was because of that horrendous row they had had a week ago. She had been crying as she ran out the door. Nino had watched her from his lonely position at his window, silent as always. And then, a few hours later, his father had cried, too, the deep masculine sobs muffled by the thin walls behind which he hid.   
  
Nino was twelve years old, and that was the first time he had heard his father cry.  Sighing at the memory, he clutched the precious red box closer to his chest and hurried on home, hoping to get back before either of his parents. He still had to write a card (which was going to be hard, since he’d need to mimic his mother’s handwriting) and think of a proper way to deliver this gift.  
  
“This better work,” he muttered as he kicked off his shoes at the doorstep. Not that he really knew what he wanted these chocolates to do; he was far past the age of believing in love potions, after all! But he couldn’t deny that there was just a small part of him deep down inside that still hoped. His father had seemed so heartbroken that day.  
  
When it was all done, he left the box with the painstakingly written card on the dining table, figuring that his father would see it when he got home from work. Nino then grabbed a few bags of chips from the kitchen and retreated to his room, closing the door behind him.   
  
He figured he could use a nap. Maybe when he woke up, his father would be smiling again, and the yelling would stop, or at the very least, lessen.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino was woken by a loud crash in the dining room.   
  
“What the _hell_  is this? More favors from your whores?” His mother’s snarls were enough to jolt him to full attention.   
  
“I told you,  _no!_ ” His father sounded equally angry. “I have no idea where it came from! Why do you  _always_  have to assume the worst of me? You’ve become nothing but a suspicious, petty—”

Nino clamped his ears before he could listen to any more. The walls of the house muted a lot of things, but they did nothing to attenuate the venom in his parents’ hurtful words to each other. Nino knew that from experience.

  
_It’s all my fault._  He drew the covers back up over his head with a miserable sigh.  _I’ve made it worse._  

There was a sudden slam of the door, and Nino didn’t need to hear the dialogue to know that his mother had just stormed out yet again.   
  
_What if she never comes back? What if this fight is_ the  _fight?_  
  
“I’d have divorced you ages ago if it wasn’t for Kazu!” His father yelled after her.   
  
“I wouldn’t even have  _married_ you if we didn’t have Kazu!” His mother screeched back from down the hall.    
  
_‘If we didn’t have Kazu….’_  
  
Nino’s bottom lip was quivering dangerously now, and his heart beat erratically; pathetic though it was to admit, the sound of his name coming from his parents’ lips had made his limbs all weak and light and idiotically floppy… it had just been so  _long_  since he’d heard it he was half convinced they had forgotten about him completely. But still… the bitterness, the biting, unrelenting bitterness that permeated every syllable negated any gratification he might have felt initially, and in his primitive nest of blankets, Nino found himself beginning to cry.   
  
The first tears rolled down the sides of his cheek, hot and frustrated coming out of his eyes, but cold and lifeless when they settled into the coarse fibers of his blanket. Gasping, Nino bit down on his tongue, trying hard to stifle the growing spasms in his throat.   
  
_I’m not a crybaby._  He squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to keep the tears in.  _Not a crybaby. No, no, I’m strong… Always strong… Never a… cry…baby…_  
  
The first whimpers escaped, and with them, the floodgates opened. There was a hiccupping breath, and once Nino’s mouth opened, he couldn’t seem to close it; the very blubbering, whining, heaving, gulping act of _crying_  consumed him from head to toe, and it was all he could do to curl up and wrap the blankets tighter so his piteous noises wouldn’t travel.   
  
“They hate each other,” he mumbled into his pillow. “They wish they could leave each other… Maybe they’d even be happier if they left each other… but they can’t… they can’t…and it’s all because of me… all my fault…again…”  
  
His body convulsed into another torrent of sobs, and this time, he bit down on his own arm to stop the noise. The pain calmed him down a little, and for a few minutes, he simply lay there unmoving, his teeth digging into his arm and a steady gush of tears flowing silently down both cheeks.  
  
_No one wants me. I’m just… in the way._  
  
He was just letting out another whimper, hating how his entire room reeked of self-pity, when two long legs scraped their way over the open windowsill, and a familiar blob of shaggy hair popped up against the backdrop of dimmed stars outside.   
  
“Nee~ _no_ ~!” chimed a singsong voice, which quickly turned into a concerned voice as it got closer.   
  
“Nino?”   
  
Nino could already feel the room getting warmer, but didn’t answer.   
  
“Nino!” The voice was now by his bed, and there was a soft rustle of a tissue being pulled out of a box. “Here.” It was very quiet, very restrained, almost unlike the freewheeling joking voice that Nino knew so well.  
  
“Go away,” he finally growled out. Aiba’s sunny face was the _last_  thing he needed to see right now. “I don’t need that. I’m not crying.”  
  
Infuriatingly enough, the other boy simply knelt down in response, wrapping the rejected tissue around his forefinger and beginning to dab at the exposed corner of Nino’s eyes with surprising tenderness. He didn’t speak, but then again, he didn’t have to. He just worked his way in, from Nino’s eyes to his nose, peeling aside the blanket inch by inch as his gentle finger went from one streak of tears to the next. When he had finished dabbing the tears from Nino’s entire face, he paused, looking down at the exposed features with an unfathomable expression in his eyes.  
  
“I told you, I didn’t need that,” Nino sniffled, slightly defiant.  
  
“I know.” Aiba smiled. “And you weren’t crying, either.”  
  
They gazed at each other wordlessly until Nino couldn’t bear the silence anymore.   
  
“Oh, get in here already.” He flipped his covers open and tugged Aiba down by the wrist. The warmth immediately seeped back into his body, and a pleasant peace settled over him as the familiar heartbeat thumped against their shared sheets. Their bodies were closer than they had ever been, nestled against each other like two peas in a pod.  
  
“Stay like this, okay?” Nino whispered into the dark.   
  
Aiba nodded into their shared pillow. And for the first time that night, Nino smiled.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Something was off about Aiba.  
  
_Well_ , Sho chided himself,  _of course something’s off._ It wasn’t like Aiba Masaki was ever normal to begin with. Normal people didn’t just follow complete strangers home in the middle of the night, after all. Nor did they remain childishly mute for the subsequent  _year_  of living in said home with said complete stranger, communicating only through lackadaisical smiles that somehow shot more wattage than all the lights in Sho’s apartment put together. No, normal people definitely did not require a whole year to graduate from smiling to talking; and moreover, their first words to a kind caregiver who had taken them in would probably not be anything quite as insolent as  _“Chipmunk, welcome home,”_  either.  
  
Sighing, Sho shoved his keyboard under his desk and leaned back in his chair, both arms arching up to clasp hands behind his weary head. He could still remember the first time he heard his husband’s voice. It had been foggy day, with the type of dreariness unique to the weeklong dribbles of rain that so often shrouded the streets of Chiba, and he had stumbled home late, barely managing to push his door open before collapsing in an exhausted heap against his muddied shoe-rack. “Aiba!” he had called weakly. His apartment had never felt so gloomy. “Aiba, I need you!” To his surprise, a firm arm had materialized almost immediately, curling itself around him and pulling him back to rest against a hot, thumping chest.   
  
Sho remembered melting, as if he was a snowflake on a child’s tongue, and he remembered velvety giggles that began dancing across his skin like flurries of naughty feathers. Smiling lips nipped at his earlobe, more playful than seductive, and the last thing he registered before being washed away into sleep was the honey-like naivety of Aiba Masaki’s voice. “Welcome home. _Chipmunk_.”  
  
But that had all been years ago, back when Aiba still delighted in coming up with nicknames and nibbling at his ears. Now, it was like some invisible hammer had been chipping away at his husband, picking off the sweet little fragments that loved to snuggle up to him one by one and sculpting in their places a Masaki that was more distant, less responsive and infinitely  _lost_. Of course, most days, the man was still normal, mucking about the kitchen and whistling to himself like a lark, and most nights were also all right, with the two of them spooned against each other and Masaki’s characteristic smile faintly glowing in the dark.    
  
But there had been many  _moments_ , many little details and whispers and inexplicable gestures that had Sho wondering… Like the day before, when Aiba had panicked and jumped behind a curtain as Sho walked in on him undressing, or that time they went shopping, and Aiba had picked several outfits that were two sizes too small for him. Then, there was that one night when Sho had had a bad day at work and Aiba somehow thought that keeping him up to the crack of dawn in a video game tournament would be a better way to cheer him up than the honeyed blowjob he had been expecting. Sho could still remember the incredulous look in his husband’s eyes as he finally pounced on him after letting his avatar die for the umpteenth time. “Ow!” Aiba had squeaked from under his feverish kisses. “Are you sure you don’t want a rematch?”  
  
_Hell, but who in their right mind would be thinking about_ video games _when they had someone like Aiba Masaki to take to bed?_  
  
Sho thought that had been extremely fishy.   
  
_Yes, there’s definitely something off about Aiba these days,_ he decided grimly. _Something more than just forgetfulness._  
  
Throwing a distasteful glance at the documents left on his desk, he got up and made his way into the kitchen. It had been another crappy day; he had been so preoccupied that he’d barely managed to get any work done. Perhaps it was time for a break. A good bowl of soba sounded very appetizing at the moment... Moreover, it was asari clam season, and those were his  _favorite_. He’d already asked Aiba to grab half a pound from the market that morning and his stomach rumbled with anticipation as cooking noises travelled to his ears.   
  
“Sho-chan!” His beautiful husband turned to wave a spatula at him, an apron tied around his waist and a floppy hat perched on his warm brown hair as something sizzled enthusiastically on the stove behind. “Stay right where you are!” The air tingled with a teasing laugh. “It’s my turn to make a mess in the kitchen today, and I don’t need your help to do it!”  
  
Sho smiled back, his misgivings temporarily pushed to the back of his mind. This was the Aiba Masaki he had fallen in love with, the Aiba Masaki who could laugh and dance and construct entire worlds where nothing but the two of them mattered. And Sho was glad this Aiba was back, glad to feel the heat emanate from those chocolate eyes and to hear that tongue clicking impatiently with every tilt of the frying pan.   
  
_Silly Masaki_. He leaned against the doorframe in contentment, watching his husband make a neat flip of two burger patties on the pan.  _Always trying to show off for me_. His heart swelled slightly as Aiba turned to shoot him a smug little wink.   
  
“Your favorite food, Sho-chan,” he announced with a grin. “Extra fat, fennel, and mustard seed grilled over a bed of the _unhealthiest_  bacon grease. Just as you requested.”  
  
“ _I_  requested…?” A wave of confusion froze the happy bubble that had been swelling Sho’s heart as he stared at the garnished dinner plate that was being pushed towards him. A thick patty stared back up at him from a couple of buttered sesame buns. “Since when did I ever like  _hamburgers_?”   
  
The sunshine in his husband’s face faltered, and for a moment, Aiba Masaki looked as though he was ready to burst into tears.  
  
“I-I thought you  _always_  liked hamburgers!” he whispered, tearing off his floppy hat and wringing it between his greasy fingers. Sho winced, a sinking weight dragging his heart to the bottom of his feet as he instinctively stepped over to put a hand on his husband’s agitated arm.  
  
“It’s—it’s okay, Masaki,” he lied haltingly, hating himself for being so weak and hating Masaki (just a little) for having such an innocent face despite his often inexplicable screw-ups. “I think… I must have forgotten myself for a moment there.” He chuckled insincerely and brought a piece of hamburger up to his husband’s mouth. “Of course I’ve always liked hamburgers, especially yours.” He coaxed the trembling lips open and slid the piece of meat in gently, watching as Aiba’s timid tongue curled around to receive and savor it.   
  
“I only wanted to remember,” mumbled his husband, resting the fluffy brown head against the cords of Sho’s neck. “…that time we first fell in love…”  
  
Sho had no idea how hamburgers had anything to do with their love, and if he had to be honest, he was getting a steadily increasing sensation of bitter hurt in his chest (how could Aiba  _not_ remember how they fell in love?), but he held Aiba tighter all the same, and hesitantly, they fed each other every last morsel on their plates before he tugged on his husband’s hand to lead him back to their bedroom.   
  
There, he closed the door, dimmed the lights, and turned to his wide-eyed Masaki. The unpleasant feeling in his heart was throbbing painfully now, and he wanted to know—he  _had_  to know—  
  
“You haven’t forgotten the first time we  _made_  love, have you, Aiba?” he asked, and then caught himself just in time. “No, don’t answer that,” he amended curtly, unable to stomach the lost look that had just flashed through his husband’s eyes.  
  
“Our bodies can do all the talking tonight…” A great wave of resentment suddenly swelled up inside him as he undressed, making him whip his belt off with a sharper snap than he had really intended. Was he really that forgettable to Aiba?   
  
“Sho-chan? Is-is everything all right? You look kind of mad…”  
  
“I’m fine,” growled Sho, cutting him off. “I’ll be fine. Just-just  _remember this_.”   
  
Every syllable was terse, both a promise and a threat.   
  
Aiba looked very confused, but he nodded docilely and complied as a naked Sho closed in to push him into their frigid bed.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It had become a habit for Nino to lie awake with the lights turned off, unable to sleep until he heard the soft click of his parents’ bedroom door closing and subsequent peace that settled uneasily over the house. The yelling had come to a lull since that Valentine’s Day fiasco a month ago, and it almost seemed as though his parents had made their peace with each other, but still, he’d often hear his father shuffling around their living room after his mother fell asleep. Nino’d always be afraid to wake up too early the next morning when that happened. He didn’t want to see proof that his father spent more nights on the couch than in bed with his mother.   
  
Because Nino was old enough to understand what was supposed to happen behind the closed doors of a married couple’s bedroom.  
  
He was also smart enough to understand what it meant when it  _didn’t_ happen anymore.   
  
“Love is over.” He made a mournful noise in his throat, and wondered if the love had ever been there in the first place. His mother had always said that he was a child born of love, but he found that to be very doubtful now.   
  
He wondered if he’d ever fall in love. Or if anyone would ever fall in love with him.    
  
_Probably not,_  he thought, and he closed his eyes, refusing to feel sorry for himself.   
  
For some reason, Aiba’s face popped up in his mind, silly and grinning and full of lame (but good-humored) jokes, and Nino found himself unable to stop thinking about whether  _Aiba_  would ever fall in love. And if he would, then who—  
  
“Hmph!”   
  
He flipped the covers over his head, opting for sleep over these troublesome thoughts. Maybe if he dreamed hard enough, aliens from the glittering constellations would sweep him up into the night and adopt him permanently and he’d never have to wake up in this house again. Then his parents could finally be happy and—  
  
“Nee~no~!”  
  
Nino’s drooping eyes jerked open with a start.   
  
“Eh—?” He hissed in alarm as a warm lump (which he  _swore_  had not been there a moment ago) twisted itself at his back, jabbing his ribs. “ _Aiba?!_ —What are you doing here  _again_?”  
  
“Nino needed me,” said Aiba, as if that answered the question. The lights were off, and it was drizzling outside, but Nino could make out the outlines of a bright smile as he squirmed around to face the other boy.   
  
“Yeah, you wish,” he grumbled, glad of the shadows that covered his blush. Why did Aiba always pick these sorts of moments to appear? “Don’t your parents ever worry about you wandering out at night all the time?”  
  
In response Aiba just hummed, not answering, and snuggled closer to wrap a teasing leg over Nino’s body. The sheets rustled against the drip-drip of rain on their windowsill, and the two wiggled underneath, entangled in each other, one laughingly trying to capture the other with his long and bendy limbs. Nino shimmied and shivered, trying (but only half-heartedly) to escape the growing heat of Aiba’s playful tackles. The struggle stopped abruptly though, when the older boy untangled a cumbersome piece of blanket and finally managed to swing himself fully atop the younger, his hands pinning Nino’s wrists to the bed and his knees clenching Nino’s waist in between them.   
  
“Nino needed me.” The words were repeated, but the voice was now softer, breathier, like a trace of silk over Nino’s warming cheeks.   
  
Nino felt an involuntary chill run down his spine as Aiba’s shadowy face leaned close. He couldn’t tell if the other boy was still smiling or not, but something in the air had definitely changed, and it felt like the narrow space between their lips was all of a sudden filled with tingling webs of electricity, full of unknown danger… and of anticipation.  
  
“I-I told you, I don—”  
  
“Nino was wondering, wasn’t he?” Aiba began tracing little circles in Nino’s trembling palm. “Wondering what it’d be like to be loved…”  
  
_So close now. So achingly close._  Nino had no words left, just a small moan as the surrender inched down every part of his body.   
  
“… Nino’s never had anyone devoted fully to Nino and Nino  _alone_ , now has he?...”  
  
Shivers. The voice barely sounded like Aiba anymore. It wasn’t anything like the boy whose big mouth was always open in a big silly grin. It had become deeper, and  _older_.   
  
“… never had his happiness become the  _entirety_  of someone else’s existence…”  
  
Nino gave a ragged sob.  _My happiness?_ The rain stopped outside, and everything became eerily silent. Atop him, Aiba’s eyes glinted, and it was only then that Nino realized the moon had come out.   
  
“Masaki…” he moaned, his twelve-year-old body suddenly feeling very young and insignificant against Aiba’s, which made no sense, since Aiba was supposed to be the same age… or was he? Nino struggled a little against the hands that were pinning him down. Aiba was very strong, but for the first time, Nino noticed that the strength seemed not to come from his muscles (which were rather thin) but from some inner core power that seemed to permeate Aiba’s entire being, making him shimmer and twinkle like a string of starlight solidified.   
  
“Masaki,” he said again, suddenly very scared at the mature—almost  _ancient_ —force that the night seemed to be awakening in his friend. “Masaki, I don’t think we should—”  
  
“I can love you, Nino,” Aiba said softly, cutting off his little whimper, and their shared web of electricity crackled dangerously as the older set of lips brushed against his skin.   
  
“Stars be damned, Nino, I can  _love_  you.” His voice was completely different now, dark and full of barely restrained wonder, as if Aiba himself had just come to this realization and was carefully testing the new boundaries of his ability to love with purring breaths and slow gyrations of the hip. It was making Nino more and more apprehensive by the second. He didn’t know what Aiba was trying to do, but some instinct told him it was wrong, and that it would be very,  _very_  painful.  
  
“I would never walk out on you _._  You only need to say the word, Nino, and I’ll love you  _forever_.”   
  
Aiba was watching him expectantly, like this was some play that was reaching its climax, like everything, from the rain to the moon to their shared shivers under the sheets, was some subdued culmination of some unknown turmoil. But Nino curled up, cold despite the warmth of Aiba’s body, and even though he could see nothing but devotion in those eyes, he turned away, denying his friend the flavor of his lips.   
  
“I hate the word ‘ _forever_ ,’” he said into his pillow. He remembered how his parents had said  _forever_ , too. “Nothing lasts forever,” he muttered bitterly.   
  
“The stars do.”   
  
The voice was so soft, he couldn’t tell if Aiba was hurt or surprised, but the hands pinning him down slackened their grip, and the warm breath against his lips shifted sighingly to caress the empty night air instead. The body on top slid to his side, and for the rest of the night, Nino found himself nestled confusedly in the embrace of his best friend, who, for some strange reason, did not feel quite like a simple  _best friend_  anymore.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aiba had no idea where Sho was. Or where he should be. It was already half past eight and Aiba had only a vague expectation that his husband should be home by this hour. He hadn’t said anything about overtime today, after all.   
  
Although… who knew? He might have, and Aiba might just have forgotten. Aiba was forgetting a lot of things lately.   
  
“Nmmhhh…” He yawned and stretched his long limbs out from where he was sitting on their bedroom windowsill, his back towards the outside and legs kicking against the interior wall just beside a cute little rocking chair he had begged Sho to buy for him a few years ago. Back when Sho still delighted in finding every excuse to lavish gifts and attention on him.   
  
“Sho-chan’s been avoiding me,” he murmured aloud to no one in particular. It was time he admitted it, after all. It had been going on long enough. Ever since that incident with the hamburgers and the furious bout of lovemaking that had followed.   
  
_Or well, at least Sho-chan had called it “love-making.”_  
  
Aiba wasn’t nearly as cognizant of the ways of the world as his educated husband, but he was pretty sure that the steely thrusts he received hat night weren’t what most people would call  _love_. It probably wasn’t all that close to what Sho himself would normally call  _love_ , as Sho was usually quite the gentle type in bed, content to go slow and let their bodies melt gradually into one another while stroking Aiba’s hair and kissing his beautiful eyes and whispering again and again how much he loved staring into their molten chocolate depths… Aiba hadn’t ever seen Sho as forceful as that night before. He had barely just recovered from the joyful glow of having his husband feed him bites of his own hamburgers when Sho was suddenly naked and menacing, shoving him down to their bed while tearing at his pants. Once Aiba was undressed, Sho had wasted no time flipping him over so that he was face down in their sheets, and then he straight up entered him with neither warning nor lube. Aiba had cried out his name, thinking it would please him, but all that elicited was a low grunt of “Don’t talk!” and a deeper prod into his tender prostate.  
  
When they were both spent, Aiba had felt like crying. He didn’t like this no-talking-during-sex thing, and he didn’t like making love with Sho when all he could see were the outlines of their pillows and a few discarded pieces of underwear. What he’d really needed was to see Sho’s eyes, to hear his soothing voice and feel his fingers rake lightly over his neck and shoulders the way they usually did, reassuring him that he’d done nothing wrong, and that the little bouts of forgetfulness weren’t going to diminish the love that had grown between them.   
  
Well, he had gotten none of that.   
  
And he had just been about to curl up into a far corner of their bed to hide his tears (“Good night, Sho-chan.”) when two strong arms stopped him from moving. Shocked and scared, he’d turned around with baited breath, only to find the face of his husband, equally tearful and equally scared, staring back into his own with two hauntingly remorseful eyes.   
  
_Can I talk now?_  Aiba had wanted to ask, but he ended up holding his peace. It was much better to just be held, to have Sho-chan’s glistening eyes gaze into his own like this than to risk doing something that might unexpectedly displease his husband even more.  
  
“I’m sorry.” To his surprise, his husband actually began sobbing violently as they continued to hold each other’s gazes in the dark. “I just—I couldn’t b-bear to be f-forgotten…”  
  
_And I can’t bear to forget you._  
  
_But I am forgetting._  
  
Aiba sighed again as he looked out across the bedroom he and Sho had shared so many intimate memories in. There were pictures from various years decorating the walls and dressers, some of which stirred vague recollections in Aiba’s mind, some of which he couldn’t remember at all. Though there was one in particular that stood out to him: it was a photo of a tree, all leafy and green, with dark red berries peeking from its branches just as the morning sun struck it. There was no person in the photo, and Aiba could not remember who had taken it, but it felt familiar to him, more familiar than anything else in the house, and he didn’t know why.   
  
“Sho-chan,” he wondered aloud again. “When are you coming home?”   
  
He really didn’t want to have to sit in the house alone after dark. The stars were rather bright tonight, and whenever they were bright, he tended to forget things more easily. It was just the weird way things worked. And barely seeing his Sho-chan at all for the past few days certainly wasn’t helping his memory, either.   
  
_He’s been avoiding me. He’s been leaving for work earlier and staying late every night. He doesn’t talk to me as much either, just smiles faintly and tells me my cooking is delicious. I wonder if I’ve done something bad… something that makes him afraid to touch me these days…_  
  
The sound of a car pulling into their driveway interrupted Aiba’s musings, and he slid off the windowsill as soon as he heard the automatic gate to their garage opening. The sleek black tail of his husband’s sedan was just disappearing beneath the awning, and a few seconds later, he heard the engine stop and the curt slam of a car door.   
  
Gathering himself with a deep breath, Aiba brushed the stray hair out of his eyes and hurried out to the door with a bright smile plastered on his face.   
  
“Welcome home!” he chimed, leaning in to give his surprised Sho-chan a darting kiss on the cheek.   
  
Heck, but if the following few hours were to be the only time he got to spend with Sho for the rest of the week, then he was sure as hell going to make  _every second_  of it count.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino hadn’t seen Aiba for about a month after that night, and he was getting rather nervous, afraid that somehow, he had lost his friend for good. He’d been by the local park where they usually played basketball a few times, and he’d also hung around the cinema and the surrounding cafes that they sometimes met at, but there was no sign of Aiba in any of those places. In the evenings, Nino would often find himself looking over his shoulder to check the window, which he always left open, but nothing would ever greet him back except for the rustling leaves of the big tree and the silent twinkling of the stars above.   
  
Sometimes, Nino would stand unmoving by the window before going to bed at night, looking up at the constellations that Aiba had taught him and murmuring their names one by one as he connected them in his head. He’d often see a particularly bright star shining down him, cold and steely blue, but he didn’t know its name. Aiba never told him about that one.   
  
It was during this period that Nino realized just how little he actually knew about Aiba. He didn’t know his phone number or where he lived or how many siblings he had or what his parents were like. He didn’t even have a way to contact him to tell him he was sorry.   
  
_And yes, I’m sorry. I’m very sorry, Aiba._  
  
Nino hadn’t forgotten the peculiar, menacing change that had come over Aiba that night. He hadn’t forgotten the dangerous feeling of Aiba’s hard body pressing against his own. He was old enough to  _sort of_  know where it had all been going that night, but not quite enough to understand exactly what that would have entailed, had he gone along with it. All he had was his gut instinct, and it told him that giving in and letting Aiba “love” him that night would have been a  _terribly_  wrong thing to do, even though his mind kept telling him that Aiba Masaki was possibly the only person who  _actually_ loved him.   
  
And the more he was left alone, the more he was convinced that Aiba Masaki was probably the only person he, Ninomiya, was capable of loving, too. He had held his hand and let him kiss his cheek; and none of it had felt unpleasant or anything. Aiba was warm and kind, after all, and always came over whenever Nino needed him. Nino couldn’t deny that whenever Aiba was around, all his troubles would be magically muted and he wouldn’t feel the blustering cold that normally plagued his everyday existence. He also never felt tired or hurt or painful when he had Aiba beside him. It was like Aiba was a healing ray of sunshine condensed into human form.   
  
Perhaps that was what being in love felt like, Nino thought, and then he frowned.   
  
_I thought being in love meant that it’d feel nice to, erm,_ sleep  _together, too._  
  
He still wasn’t sure what he had felt when Aiba had touched him in  _that_  way, but he had to admit that it wasn’t exactly something he’d call ‘ _nice_.’ He wasn’t even sure why his best friend had seemingly transformed into a whole different person—someone older, and far more forceful—when he had exposed himself in such a vulnerable state, especially since Aiba had been his perfectly normal and cheery self the morning after, when they had both woken up to the dawn’s light shining down on their curled up bodies.   
  
Nino sighed, and looked back up at that unnamed blue star twinkling through the leaves outside his window. Love was such a perplexing notion.   
  
_I just hope Aiba comes back some day._  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aiba came back after a few months. Nino had almost given up hope by then, thinking that perhaps his enigmatic best friend had left for good, but there he was, one rainy autumn evening, dangling his familiar long legs over the windowsill just as Nino was finishing up his math homework.   
  
“Wanna play basketball?” He grinned, tossing his dirty ball from one hand to the other. Nino stared. It was like nothing had happened between them at all.  
  
“Aiba!” he breathed in disbelief.   
  
“Mmhmm?” The shaggy brown head cocked to one side, almost coyly. Unknowingly, Nino had leapt up from his seat, but Aiba made no move to approach any further, so Nino just stood there awkwardly in the middle of his room for a minute or two, scratching the back of his neck and trying very hard  _not_  to look as though he had been expecting a hug or some other sign of affection.   
  
“It’s, um, raining,” he finally managed to say.   
  
“So?” Unperturbed, Aiba gave an easy shrug and passed him the ball with a practiced flick of his wrist. “We always play in the rain.”  
  
Stiffly, Nino caught it, still overwhelmed by the sheer presence of Aiba Masaki just three feet away from him. There were so many things he wanted to say:  _Of course, we always played in the rain! Of course, I’d like to play with you! But first of all…_   _where have you been?... Why didn’t you visit?... That night… I’m sorry about that night; I didn’t mean to reject you… I was just scared… Your eyes were shining like, like the stars… Oh, I’ve missed you, Aiba… I’ve missed you so much._  
  
Out loud, though, he could say nothing.   
  
“ _Hello?_  Are you okay, Nino?” Aiba waved a hand in front of his face, the chocolate eyes full of jaunty cheer. “You look like you’re about to stare a hole into the floor.”  
  
A finger of Aiba’s accidentally grazed his hair, and Nino started as though he’d been zapped by lightning. Blinking hazily, he looked up from the floor and met Aiba’s eyes, one hand suddenly snaking out to catch the other boy’s carefree wrist. An odd satisfaction flooded him as he watched Aiba’s eyes grow wide with surprise.   
  
“Don’t you at least want a welcome-back hug?”  
  
He pulled Aiba close. It was an unfamiliar feeling, him pulling Aiba close; it had always been the other way around, usually, but this time, Nino’s body seemed intent on taking all the initiative. There was the soft thud of a wet basketball on his carpet, and the gentle rustle of Aiba’s shirt against his own, and before he knew it, his nose was digging into Aiba’s jaw and his lips were pressed flush against the warmly throbbing vein in Aiba’s neck. He could feel the thread of life pulsating through his lips, could feel the beat of blood drumming against the delicate skin of his oversensitive lips like a ball dribbling steadily from midcourt to basket… _Ah!_  The vein shivered and gave a brief spasm beneath the ghosting whisper of his mouth.  
  
Nino smiled.   
  
“Slam and dunk,” he murmured, tightening both arms around his recovered best friend. “You missed me too, didn’t you, Aiba?”  
  
The vein came to a shuddering stop, and abruptly Aiba broke away, leaving Nino to hug a dismayed patch of chilly night air.   
  
“Idiot.”  
  
The chocolate eyes were hidden, and the shaggy head was downcast, but for a brief moment— barely a split second—Nino saw the flash of pain that darted across that otherwise flawless face, and the truth hit him suddenly and with astounding clarity: the light in Aiba’s eyes—so merry, so blithe—it wasn’t a reflection of the lamps in their surroundings; in fact, it had  _never_ been a reflection of anything.   
  
The light in Aiba’s eyes came directly from the depths of  _Aiba himself_ , and once Nino was able to pierce through the comforting layers of chocolate warmth and carefree laughter, he realized with a chilling twist that the essence of Aiba’s eyes was neither warm nor carefree.   
  
It was lonely.   
  
Aiba Masaki, for all his smiles and vivacity, was just as lonely and lost as him.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time Sho met Aiba was several years ago, on a rainy night in Chiba. He had just gotten a raise at work, and had thus been treating himself to a sushi dinner and some premium hot sake. It wasn’t a particularly merry affair, since he didn’t have anyone to celebrate with, but he enjoyed the meal in his own quiet way. It was only proper, after all, to reward oneself for one’s accomplishments in life.   
  
Belly full and throat still warm from the gush of alcohol, he had been on his way home when he saw the man who was going to become his husband in exactly two years from that day. Aiba had been sitting at the base of a gnarly old tree in the less savory part of the neighborhood, the part where all the miserable-looking housing projects were. It had been raining pretty hard, and the winds took away whatever scant shelter the tree provided. Aiba had seemed unperturbed by the weather, though. That was the first thing Sho noticed, that Aiba’s face was actually tilted up _towards_  the rocking canopies and the stormy skies, that even when the lightning started to crack and being under a damn tree became downright  _dangerous,_  Aiba’s body was still just sitting there, looking up and content to be lashed at by the ruthless elements.   
  
Sho had always been taught to be a good citizen, and Aiba honestly didn’t look like one of those shady types, so he had walked over and offered him his hand and a spot under his umbrella.   
  
Sho would never forget those eyes as they fluttered open, raindrops still clinging to the dark lashes, pupils constricting rapidly as they met the hazy lamplight. It was as though someone had condensed every emotion from every heart-breaking ballad in existence and packed them all into those two deep wells of starlight and rainwater. There was turbulence, sorrow and wave upon wave of loneliness that flowed out those pupils in some helpless cycle of desolation. But there was also some strange calm in the deeper reaches of those eyes, some faraway place behind a curtain of darkness where the constellations spun slowly and time itself was arrested by some unknown power of healing. It was all so beautiful, so somber and so serene, it made Sho want to cry, and Sho was usually exceptionally good at  _not_ crying.   
  
“You shouldn’t be sitting under a tree,” he had told Aiba, the raindrops obscuring his voice. “It’s dangerous in the storm.”  
  
Aiba might have whimpered or made a noise, but the gust of wind that suddenly whipped around them drowned everything and almost flipped Sho’s umbrella inside out. Cursing, the young salaryman had tried to fix it, failed, and then taken one look up at the angry white streaks in the sky before a wild impulse overtook him and he snatched the stranger’s hand, pulling him up and out from the shadow of the ancient tree.   
  
“Do you live around here?” He had panted as they ran to a semi-sheltered bus stop. Aiba’s hand was very cold; Sho remembered that. “You should get indoors, and get warm.”  
  
Aiba had just stared, his beautiful eyes wet and soulful.   
  
“You- you got an address or something?” Sho had tried again, squeezing the cold hand which was unresponsive as ever. “Hey, do you even speak Japanese?”  
  
He had stared at the man uncertainly, but Aiba only blinked and looked back through the glass of the bus-stop, back in the direction of the rustling tree. When he turned back, he still didn’t speak, but Sho felt a slight tightening of cold fingers against his hand.   
  
_Take me back_ , they seemed to say.  _I want to go back._  
  
“Back where?” Sho had thought. Certainly not back to the storm! Sho was definitely not going to leave this man back where he’d found him; in fact, the more he looked at him, the more that urge to cry stirred in his heart, and the harder it was to let go of the icy hand he still held in his own.   
  
Another peal of thunder rumbled above them, and Sho found himself gritting his teeth in sudden resolution. The haunting eyes were looking at him rather curiously now, a soft chocolate brown clouding over the wheeling heavens that in their depths. They made him feel strangely light-headed, and before he knew it, he was pressing the man against his chest, feeling the rain-soaked cheeks against his clean white shirt and rubbing the top of that golden head with the tip of his chin.   
  
“I’m taking you home with me,” he said. “From now on, you’ll stay with me.”  
  
He thought he heard Aiba whimper, and felt a shiver of heat where their skin met. Instinctively, he hugged the man closer, and with the storm raging around them, they closed their eyes together.   
  
_Thump. Thump._  
  
_Thu-thump._  
  
Sho would always remember the first thuds of his husband’s heartbeat beating against his own. He’d always remember the rain, the cold, the storm, and how it all melted away when Aiba’s heart had started beating, how the skies seemed to clear and the starlight glowed warm as the world calmed down to a peaceable timbre when they both opened their eyes again.  
  
Sho was far too logical to believe in the supernatural, but sometimes (just sometimes) he liked to tell himself that the storm had subsided because Masaki had willed it, because Masaki was amazing like that, and because that moment was  _the_  moment the amazing Masaki had fallen in love.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino had been excited all week. His father had finally gotten approved for a loan that would allow him to start a modest cooking school, which meant that they were finally moving out of the housing project in Chiba and into a real home, one with heaters and solid walls and everything. And Nino would be transferring to a new school, one with  _two_  baseball fields and a varsity team that had a coach and manager and a special locker room just for the players. Nino had been breathtaken when they toured the grounds. His mother (who had been spending much more time at home these days) let him stay behind to watch the team practice, and his eyes had widened at the fluid passes, the easy catches, the effortless teamwork…   
  
When practice ended, Nino was already standing behind the baseball fence with his fingers clawing the wiring, his face pressed longingly against the little metal diamonds as the players shouldered their bats and took off their mitts, laughing, panting and trading affectionate insults. One boy seemed to be especially popular, and Nino guessed he was the captain, since he seemed to be the one yelling all the commands during their drills. His face was handsome and strong-featured, with thick slanting eyebrows and a curiously lopsided mouth that was currently wide open in laughter as he let his teammates pat, grope and tickle him in their merriment.   
  
_They all seem to be friends._  Nino sighed as he watched them relax.  _I bet they hang out all the time, outside of class._  Nino had never hung out with anyone outside of class. Except for Aiba. But then again, Aiba didn’t go to his school, so outside of class was the only time he _could_  hang out with Aiba. Nino frowned. Come to think of it, what school  _did_ Aiba go to? The boy never talked about school, at least not when they were together… in fact, he’d been talking a lot less in general ever since his return after the (still unexplained) five-month absence… it was like something had changed inside him… something subtle but substantial…  
  
“Hey, excuse me!”   
  
Nino blinked with a start, and his cheeks immediately blanched a sharp white as he looked around to find himself face to face with the intense gaze of the handsome baseball captain.   
  
“Y-yes?” he squeaked, suddenly very aware of how childish he must look, clinging on to the baseball fence like a little boy who wasn’t tall enough yet to ride the roller coasters. But the handsome captain smiled at him, making the afternoon sun dance in his eyes as he tossed Nino a monogrammed baseball mitt.   
  
**_M.J._**  
  
Nino read the initials sewn on the wrist, and looked back at the handsome captain, bewildered. The other players had all gone, so they were the only two on the field.  
  
“You looked like you wanted to play,” remarked the captain.   
  
“M-me? But I… I’m not on the team…”   
  
Nino’s stuttering protest was cut short by a soft thump as a baseball bounced lightly off his narrow right shoulder. He looked up, alarmed, to find the handsome captain reaching for a second ball, smirking at him a little playfully as he prepared to throw again.  
  
“You better put that mitt on,” he said, and Nino felt a pleasant shiver as he slid the hard leather over his stubby hand. “I’m a pretty mean pitcher.”  
  
He tossed the ball into the air and caught it again easily, the playful look still glinting from his eyes. The nervous knot in Nino’s stomach loosened, and he managed a tiny giggle as he watched the other boy back away for more throwing distance.   
  
_He actually wants to play with me._  Nino flexed his fingers inside the mitt, his heart beginning to pound. This was the captain of the team that won the local league two years in a row, after all. Nino had seen the trophies during his tour earlier.   
  
_And he wants to play. With me._  
  
The handsome boy wound back his arm, preparing to throw.   
  
“Hey, you know!” he shouted out to Nino before releasing the ball. “Tryouts are next week!”   
  
Nino caught it cleanly, and grinned.   
  
“I know,” he said.    
  
The ball soared back to the handsome captain, and Nino could almost hear his heart sing as it soared right along it.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    
  
At first, Aiba had seemed happy for him as he chattered on about his new life and friends, most of whom played  _baseball_ , about his new school and its facilities, which included two humongous  _baseball_ fields, about his new classes and their teachers, all of whom were so understanding and didn’t mind him being tardy when there was  _baseball_  practice… He was really fitting in, and there were less and less occasions for the two of them to just goof off in his room or get soaked playing basketball in the rain. Nino didn’t really cry in the dark anymore, either, and it had been a while since he last needed Aiba’s arms around him to ward off the night time loneliness.   
  
In fact, it had been quite a while since Nino had even  _seen_  Aiba, now that he thought about it. They used to hang out every day, back at his old school when Nino didn’t have friends to walk home with or people to play sports with. Aiba would always appear _somewhere_  along the way, though Nino could never say where exactly. He was just there, a bright presence in a grey world, and Nino never thought about where he came from; he was always just glad Aiba was there. Now, though…   
  
Nino watched as the soft chocolate eyes deepened and gazed out the window to marvel at the glittering tapestry of constellations outside. Aiba’s lips were moving, as though he were singing a soundless song to himself, and his legs were drawn to his chest as though trying to shelter his heart from a nonexistent night chill.   
  
“Hey,” said Nino, finally pushing away his homework and coming over to sit next to his friend. Their shoulders touched, and he could feel Aiba tremble under the scraggly-looking shirt he was wearing.   
  
“You didn’t come to game.” Nino had been slightly disappointed when he couldn’t find his best friend’s face in the bleachers. “It was my first game as an official member of the team, you know. I even got to pitch for half an inning when Matsumoto-senpai’s shoulder got injured.”  
  
He smiled as he remembered the joyous zing of his perfect fastballs zipping past the opposing batters’ shoulders. He was a good pitcher; even Matsumoto-senpai (the handsome captain who was the reason he joined the team) had said so, and senpai was known for being strict with his team mates.   
  
_‘Ninomiya-kun.’_  Senpai had called for him amidst his agony.  _‘Tell Coach to replace me with Ninomiya-kun.’_  
  
Nino’s brow furrowed slightly as he recalled the grimace of pain on senpai’s face. Of course, he had been worried sick when he saw the way senpai’s arm had crashed to the ground with a sickening crunch. And of course, he had ran over to help him up with the rest of his team mates, afraid, so deathly afraid, that their strong captain would be seriously injured. But Nino didn’t know what exactly it was that he had been feeling towards his captain lately. He didn’t know why being with Matsumoto Jun made his heart race or why his mind kept going back to Matsumoto Jun whenever he wasn’t with him. All he knew was that senpai was the reason he was on the team, the reason he had friends, and the reason he didn’t cry himself to sleep at night anymore.  
  
_Could this be… love?_  
  
With a longing sigh, Nino leaned his head on Aiba’s shoulder and followed his friend’s gaze to the stars outside the window.   
  
He wondered if Aiba knew. He wondered if Aiba sometimes got tired of listening to him blabber on about Matsumoto-senpai all the time.   
  
“I’m happy for you,” said Aiba quietly. The stars were dancing in his eyes again, but it took Nino a while to realize that it was only because his eyes were brimming with quivering tears.   
  
“Nino’s found his… his niche.”  
  
Aiba smiled, and Nino felt a hint of the familiar warmth flood through his body as they met each other’s eyes under the faraway light of the stars. Something was missing, though, and Nino couldn’t help but feel as though Aiba had only said half of what was actually on his mind.  He peered into Aiba’s eyes; they were a bit glassy, as if focused on something that Nino couldn’t see.   
  
“Idiot,” he told Aiba, because he didn’t know what else he could say. He reached out a finger to catch the first teardrop as it rolled down the trembling cheek. It was the first time he had seen Aiba sad, and somehow, it was fitting that even when he was sad he would be smiling.   
  
Nino was quite sure that even on his deathbed, Aiba would probably still be smiling. It was something he liked about the boy.   
  
The first teardrop was cold, just like the rain back in Chiba, but before Nino could wipe it away, Aiba jumped up, looking very distracted and muttering something about needing to use the bathroom.   
  
Nino watched as he went out the door and listened as he clicked the bathroom door shut down the hall. When Aiba hadn’t returned in over half an hour, he got worried, and knocked on door to check.   
  
“Aiba?” he called softly through the wood. “Aiba, you still in there?”  
  
The door creaked open with just a light push, and Nino stared in surprise at the perfectly empty and spotless bathroom of his family’s new house. Not a single towel was out of place, and not a drop of soap or water could be seen on any countertop. A fluttering noise drew his attention to the little window high above the sink and he gaped, completely speechless as a sudden gust of wind blew in and the little curtain there flapped around to reveal a soggy, deflated basketball teetering dejectedly at the open window frame.   
  
There was no trace of Aiba. Just the deflated basketball and an open window.   
  
Frowning, Nino clambered onto the sink counter and stood on his tip-toes, barely able to peer out the little window of interest. There was nothing outside. No trees or ladders or pipes or ledges. Just a two-story fall to the ground below and an endless expanse of glittering constellations spinning wickedly in the skies  above. There was still no trace of Aiba.  
  
Nino retrieved the old basketball and clambered down, watching as the soggy leather dripped little droplets of earthy water all over the spotless sink.  
  
_Drip-drip-drip-drip._  
  
He didn’t remember it being rainy today.   
  
_Drip-drop. Drip-drop._  
  
Nor did he remember Aiba bringing a basketball with him when he visited tonight.   
  
_Drop. Drop. Drop. Drop._  
  
Actually, come to think of it, when did Aiba even come to visit him tonight?  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“Mats-Matsumoto-senpai—!”  
  
There was a slam against the sleekly painted wall of the varsity locker room, and Nino drew a squeaky breath as a leanly muscled arm almost grazed his ear and a naked chest closed in on his body at an alarming pace.   
  
“Why so jittery, Ninomiya-kun?” The masculine lips of his assailant curled up in a teasing smirk as another arm came up to trap him firmly against the wall. “We both know this was inevitable...”   
  
“Inevitable…?” Nino could barely get his mouth to form the word. It was like every breath might break some delicate balance that was holding them both in check. He was so afraid, afraid that Matsumoto would advance even closer, afraid that their freshly cleansed bodies would touch and tingle, afraid—oh _so_  afraid—that one touch would be all it took for both of them to reach the point of no return.  
  
“Inevitable.” Matsumoto’s voice rolled over his skin with a finality that brooked no further protests. “Us, playing on the same team, showering in the same locker room, taking the same train home…”   
  
A gentle finger reached down to give Nino’s face a feather-light stroke.   
  
“You and I, Ninomiya-kun, we are  _inevitable_.”  
  
Nino raised his eyes, still holding his breath, and gazed hesitantly into the magnetic intensity hovering above his face.   
  
_So full of love. So full of promises._  
  
And so completely, utterly, focused on him and him  _alone_. Like there was no one else in the world who mattered more.   
  
Matsumoto tilted his head, as if trying to decide whether a kiss would be taking it too far, and with a leap of his heart, Nino knew that it was time to surrender.   
  
His lashes fluttered down, and his cheeks blushed faintly.  
  
“I think I agree,” he said, and curled his arms around the masculine neck. “Inevitable.”  
  
_We’re already_ far  _past the point of no return._    
  
His mind gave one last numb struggle, as if there was something hidden deep in his memory that he needed to remember, something important, some emotion he had felt and stored but never confronted… and he  _needed_  to confront it; he needed to confront it  _now_.   
  
But senpai’s breath was already tickling his chin, and Nino arched his neck back with a helpless moan.   
  
There was just no room for  _thought_ anymore.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“He kissed me. We kissed. In the locker room. It was amazing. I never thought—I mean, it’s  _Matsumoto-senpai_ — he’s the  _captain_ ; he’s going to college on a sports scholarship; and he even has his own fan club! … I never even dreamed that he’d, you know… _want me_ …”   
  
Nino was blabbering and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop. Aiba was the only friend he could tell this to, after all; everyone else he knew was also a friend of Matsumoto-senpai and it would be embarrassing to confide to them. But Nino just _had_  to get all the wonderful emotions off his chest; the whizzing, whirring and dizzyingly intoxicating feelings were currently bouncing off the his gut wall so hard that he was certain he’d explode if he didn’t let them out.   
  
Aiba didn’t seem to mind, though. He was sitting on his windowsill as usual, long legs dangling down and the chocolate eyes crinkling up into happy crescents as he listened to Nino’s spirited voice. If he was jealous, he wasn’t showing it at all.   
  
_And why would he be jealous, anyways?_  Nino didn’t know why that thought had popped up, but he felt a slight nagging in his heart, as if there was something about Aiba that was slipping his mind, or something that had happened between them that he couldn’t remember anymore. Something that might explain the deep frost that sometimes peeked out from the warm twinkle of his chocolate eyes. Something to do with the way he kept gazing out the window when he thought Nino wasn’t looking, and mouthing silent words to the constellations glittering above. Like he was praying or something.   
  
Though what Aiba had to pray for, Nino really couldn’t imagine. Aiba had always been a living ray of sunshine, a spring of vitality, of athleticism and energy and leaping, boundless joy. Surely,  _Aiba_  wouldn’t…  
  
“Nino’s blushing.”   
  
Nino blinked, and readjusted his thoughts to the present, where Aiba’s happy face was grinning at him from above. Smoothly, the long legs slipped off the windowsill and bounced over to where he sat.   
  
“Nino’s in love. I can tell.”  
  
Aiba laughed and pulled him into a hug. It was a sudden hug, all tight and forceful in a somewhat more-than-just-friends kind of way as the long fingers began stroking the side of Nino’s face in a vaguely possessive manner.   
  
“Ah! Aiba- please!” Blushing even more, Nino buried his head into the folds of Aiba’s knit sweater where it was warm and smelt like grass and didn’t pose the danger of being claimed by Aiba’s lips (for some reason, Nino got the feeling that it wouldn’t be completely out of the question for Aiba to kiss him, and that bothered him; he had just been kissed by Matsumoto-senpai, after all!).   
  
The arms around him tightened, much like a starfish trying to eat a clam ( _Where did that image come from? Did we go to an aquarium together before?)_ , and Nino felt himself being pressed deeper into Aiba’s chest, until every thudding heartbeat could be felt pumping against his cheek:  _thu-thump, thu-thump… thu-thump, thu-thump…_  the smell of fallen leaves woven with countless starlit nights prickled against his nose…  _thu-thump… thu-thump_ … A sliver of light leaked through an opening under Aiba’s shoulder _… thump… thump_ … flooded with the warmth of every winter spent by Aiba’s side…  _thump…_    
  
_Thump._  
  
“Is Nino happy with him?” The smile was dazzling as always, but the voice held a plaintive note.   
  
Nino nodded; he was getting slightly disoriented from the strange halo of lamplight around Aiba’s face ( _it had to be lamplight, right?_ ); his tongue was getting sluggish and his memories seemed to be running into each other in senseless jumbles.   
  
“’M happy…” he murmured dazedly, trying but failing to refocus his vision on what was now nothing but a blur of colors and light. “… very happy…”  
  
“Good,” said Aiba, and Nino could only vaguely make out lips moving and sound travelling. “It means a lot to me… to see Nino happy.”  
  
Once more, Nino’s face was pressed up against the sturdy chest, and Aiba’s velvet voice kept murmuring “Thank you, thank you...” It was only when Aiba stopped thanking him and whispered his first  _Goodbye_  that Nino noticed it.   
  
Aiba’s chest. It was cold. Stone-cold.   
  
And Aiba’s heart. It was silent. Dead silent.   
  
“It was nice… existing for you.” Nino heard Aiba’s voice saying brokenly.   
  
And then, everything went black.  
  
The next morning, Matsumoto-senpai was waiting at his door. Nino’s mother looked proud as she watched her son shyly put his hand in the older boy’s.   
  
“Ninomiya-kun.” Senpai guided him down the block, every inch the gentleman. “Would you like me to carry your books for you?”  
  
Nino smiled. He was perfectly capable of carrying his own books, but since they were now officially boyfriends, he would like it very much, thank you. Matsumoto leaned closer to take his bookbag, and stole a light kiss just before they rounded the bend to the main road.   
  
Nino giggled, pleased.  
  
He had no memory of Aiba Masaki at all.    
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Sho had never thought of himself as the type who’d marry for love. Marriage was a thing of convenience, after all, an everyday pleasantry that all upstanding citizens from upstanding families had to do. And Sakurai Sho was definitely an upstanding citizen from an undoubtedly upstanding family. People like Sho were just too busy to marry for love. It wasn’t that Sho really  _disliked_ the idea of marriage (on the contrary, he’d always thought it’d be quite nice, the way a soft downy blanket on one’s lap was nice); he just always figured that when the time came, his parents would deal with most of the hassle and fix him up with a suitable girl, preferably one with a career of her own to keep her busy and out of his way (except, of course, for when they were both required to do the usual “husband-wife activities”).   
  
Sho had not ever thought that he would be marrying some stranger he’d picked up off the street. And he’d certainly never dreamed that it’d be a  _man_. A gorgeous, childish, almost  _magical_  man. Whom he happened to love. Yes _, love_ , as in wanting-to-spend-all-his-free-time-in-his-presence-and-all-his-free-money-buying-him-gifts  _love_  (who ever thought he’d become this irrational?). Sho was happy, though. He thought before that he knew what happiness was every time he got a raise or a promotion, but it wasn’t until he had Aiba that he knew just what happiness  _really_  was. Sho still couldn’t describe it very well (it certainly wasn’t something he could summarize into neat little paragraphs like he usually did in his courteous thank-you notes after each promotion), but he knew it was important to him because it felt good, and it felt wholesome, and it gave him an even greater drive to improve himself and be a better man, which was something Sho always relished.   
  
Sho didn’t think he’d ever enjoy planning an elaborate wedding down to every flower along the aisle and every song on the DJ’s playlist, but he did. He never thought he could write poetry (but he did that, too!) and he was even more surprised to find that when he read it aloud at the reception, it came out all rhythmic and smooth, like it was some sort of  _rap_  that one would normally hear blaring out of some punky yellow-haired kid’s earphones. Sho was pretty sure all his wedding guests were shocked, too, but he didn’t really care; a mega-watt grin had spread from ear to ear on his new husband’s face, and Sho was quickly becoming oblivious to everything else in the room.   
  
“Masaki.” He tugged on his husband’s hand, the breath almost completely torn from his throat at the sheer beauty of the man beside him. Aiba Masaki had always been quite the looker, but it was moments like these when he smiled that warm chocolatey smile that Sho really felt lost – a good, safe kind of lost. Sho could swear that sometimes, when Masaki was  _really_  happy, there’d be a soft glow around him, almost like some twinkling halo that seeped from the very pores of Aiba’s near-flawless skin itself.   
  
“Masaki,” he repeated, trying to blink his way back to earth as his new husband’s magical glow (coupled with all that wedding champagne) threatened to topple him off balance. “I think it’s time for us to go somewhere more… private.”  
  
“The honeymoon suite!” Aiba was practically squealing in his excitement. “Pick me up, Sho! Just like in the movies!”  
  
The laughter that filled the room was infectious, and soon, the newlyweds had everyone clapping and whistling as Sakurai swept his Masaki up in his arms, their coattails swishing in the air and their giggles turning giddy as Sho carried his groom out amidst a shower of glittering confetti.   
  
When Sho set Aiba down on their petal-strewn wedding bed, Aiba was looking rather nervous. Sho could feel his heart hammering against his chest like the beat of some archaic war drum. His arms were moving up to cover his slender body, and his delightfully long legs curled into his chest just slightly, as if he was a shy flower about to dip its head and fold in for the night.   
  
“What’s this?” Sho had chuckled teasingly, flicking away a stray strand of Aiba’s hair. “Is my new husband getting shy? Really, Masaki, it’s not like we haven’t made love before…”  
  
“But the stars, they’re watching us,” murmured Aiba. His eyes were fixed on some point above Sho’s shoulder, beyond the luxurious floor-length windows of their honeymoon suite, and they were wide and somber, with constellations reflected in their depths and a maze of wheeling timelessness in their gaze. Sho was suddenly reminded of the very first night he met Aiba, and of how he had thought the entire cosmos seemed to have been condensed into those two remarkable eyes.   
  
“Yes.” Gently, Sho spread apart his Masaki’s arms and interlaced their fingers against the sheets in what he hoped was a seductive position.   
  
“The stars  _are_  watching us, Masaki, and they’re smiling.”   
  
Aiba blinked, and some of the childish innocence seemed to come back into his eyes.   
  
“Really, Sho-chan?” he asked, his voice strangely plaintive.   
  
“Of course,” answered Sho, already undressing himself. “We’re in  _love_ , and all great love stories have parts written in the stars.”  
  
Aiba smiled, seemingly comforted, and gave Sho a deep, lingering kiss.   
  
“I’m glad we’re married,” he said.   
  
Sho squeezed out some lube and eased into him slowly. The night was feeling very romantic now, with the starlight in his new husband’s eyes and the rose petals bruising tenderly beneath their bare bodies.    
  
“Me too,” he answered.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino had never been more nervous as the day Matsumoto Jun led him back to his house.   
  
“My parents are out of town for the day,” he’d told him, and then squeezed his hand meaningfully in a way that made Nino’s skin shiver with nervous anticipation. “We’ve got two hours before my sister gets back from work.”   
  
Nino had just turned seventeen, and he had watched enough pornos to know exactly where this was going.   
  
“Is this supposed to be your way of saying ‘happy birthday’?” He tried to laugh as they traipsed into the Matsumotos’ living room. He really hoped that senpai wouldn’t notice how much his voice was shaking.  
  
Though, if the next few minutes were any indication of what the next two hours were going to be like, it honestly didn’t seem as though he’d be getting many opportunities to  _talk_ , really.   
  
“Your lonely eyes behind the baseball fence…” Matsumoto was panting in between a string of fervent kisses. “Ever… Ah!... ever since I saw that… I…unh… I knew…”  
  
Their tangled limbs cycled their way upstairs, slamming a door behind them and quickly extricating all excess fabrics, belts and hats until all they could feel was heated skin and thumping heartbeats and wet, shallow breaths on lashes of sweaty hair.   
  
“Thank you,” whispered Nino when it was all over, and senpai was tenderly leaning over him with a tissue in one hand, meticulously wiping the traces of their first love-making from his flushed skin. “I didn’t know it could feel this good.”  
  
Matsumoto gave a knowing chuckle and let the scented tissue linger just a bit longer on the inguinal groove of Nino’s leg.   
  
“This was your first time, wasn’t it?” He paused, looking somewhat thoughtful. “And you gave it to me.”  
  
Nino didn’t know what to say; he’d always thought the whole idea of “giving” someone your virginity was cheesy romantic nonsense, especially when it came to guys. What difference was there between the first time and the second time, anyways? But after the intimacy they had just shared, he was really starting to re-evaluate that thought.  
  
A Matsumoto-shaped shadow suddenly hovered over his face, making him blink in surprise as the intensely possessive stare of senpai’s handsome eyes washed over him.   
  
“Will you give me even more, Ninomiya-kun?”   
  
The long fingers caressed his cheek, as if he was something precious. Feeling a rush of warmth, Nino nodded.  
  
“And will you promise me that I’m the  _only_  one you’ll give this to?”  
  
At that, something uneasy stirred in Nino’s chest, and a peal of high-pitched giggles seemed to echo up from the deep cisterns of his mind, followed by splashes of a dribbling ball, running noises of wind and rainwater, and an enveloping sensation of endless, unconditional comfort.  
  
_Was there someone I knew before I met senpai?_  Nino frowned in concentration.  _Someone who liked rain, and basketball, and laughed trickles of sunshine with every breath?_  
  
_Someone who I… loved?_  
  
He looked back up at the intense eyes that were locked on his every shivering expression, and shook his head clear of what had to be an erratic mental hallucination. There was no one he admired more than Jun-senpai, after all, no one he would rather give himself up to.  
  
With a determined breath, he smiled, loving the way Matsumoto’s face lit up immediately in response.  
  
“I promise,” he answered, his voice only slightly shaking. “Only you.”   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the years passed it became apparent that Jun loved Nino, and Nino… well, Nino felt something for Jun that he’d never felt for anyone else. It was like Jun had somehow made his world fuller, like his life before Jun was just a muddled journey of a lonely boy singing to the stars every night, while his life after Jun was full of people and connections and long nights where even sadness didn’t quite feel so sad anymore just because  _Jun_  was there with him.   
  
He still wasn’t quite sure what love really entailed, but every passing day with Jun led to a happier burgeoning of his heart that seemed to be inching closer and closer to an answer; it was like he already knew that one day, the words would finally come to him, that he would finally be able to wrap his  head around the eternally puzzling concept of love, but he was still dancing around it, for some reason relishing the time he had to absorb and savor every flavor of love there was to encounter along the way.  
  
“Hey! I saw one!”   
  
Nino blinked, the starry skies reflected in the dark pools of his eyes.   
  
“What did you see?”   
  
He wormed his way closer to where his boyfriend was lounging by a half-empty picnic basket and snuggled up against the broad, comforting chest. He inhaled, and felt a smile prickling at his cheeks. The crisp bouquet of a gentle dusk was something he had begun to appreciate more and more as the years rolled on; he simply loved the scent of grass after a long day of sunshine, of trees with their flowers furled, of cooking wafting out the windows a few blocks over… and of course, the scent of Jun, which still held the musky mystery of the handsome Matsumoto-senpai he had looked up to in his first days on the baseball team but was somehow richer and more calming now that they had spent more than seven years entwined in each other.   
  
Jun smiled, and one hand absently began massaging the roots of Nino’s matted hair.   
  
“A shooting star,” he said indulgently. “There’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight.”  
  
Nino looked up to where the constellations glittered in their fixed choreography across the sky. A streak of silver suddenly blazed across Orion, gone almost as soon as it came _. Ah-!_  Nino stared, the red and green ghosts of the short-lived meteor still imprinted on his retina, flashing mournfully with every blink.   
  
“So sad,” he murmured, and Jun withdrew his gaze from the sky to look down at the pale, almost childlike, face nestled against his chest. “I mean, the meteors…” Nino amended. “They’re like tears from the stars…”  
  
“Tears from stars?” Nino could hear the smile in Jun’s voice. “Well, they must not be too sad then, if their tears last only half a second.”  
  
Jun laughed, but Nino stayed silent.  
  
“Mmm… only half a second,” he mused. “Makes you wonder if they ever happened at all…”  
  
His eyes were roaming the skies, eagerly searching the expanse for another precious streak of silver that would bring to life again the already dimming ghosts on his retina. The stars held him enraptured in their twinkling dance of the eternities, and the constellations spun teasingly as they shone slantwise into his dilated, awe-struck pupils. Weakly, he moaned, suddenly very dejected to be confined by the gravity that kept him on the ground.   
  
Beside him, Jun shifted, the dark masculine eyes leveled intently at his face.  
  
“You’re beautiful when the poetic mood takes you, my love.”   
  
He smiled, and then smothered Nino’s view with a consuming kiss.   
  
“Will you marry me, Nino? One day, under the stars, will you marry me?”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aiba stopped at the end of the block. He had gone out for grocery shopping (he knew because his grocery tote was tucked neatly under his arm), but somehow, he had wandered into a different neighborhood, and now he didn’t know the way home.   
  
He checked his watch.  _Three o’clock. Sho’s probably still at work._    
  
Dejectedly, he cast his eyes around the block. Not that he expected to see anything that would help him navigate, really. He just had the oddest feeling that there was something—or some _one_ — that he was meant to see here. His feet had been walking non-stop for about an hour, after all, and they hadn’t been wandering willy-nilly; there had been a clear purpose in their steps though he didn’t know what, but now that they had stopped, it seemed only logical that this place was meant to be his destination.   
  
There was only one other person in sight, a slight man sitting on one of the public benches with a guitar in his lap. Occasionally, he’d give it a little strum, and the stony street would be bathed in lilting reverberations of his mellow chords, but for the most part he simply sat there with his legs crossed under his instrument, one hand scrawling odd little musical notes into a notebook cramped awkwardly between the angles of his limbs. As Aiba edged closer, he could hear the man’s voice, soft, melodic, and wavering with just a touch of amateur vibrato. It was humming a vaguely familiar tune, but every now and again it would pause, as though the singer was trying hard to conjure the next verses.   
  
“Hi,” said Aiba brightly.   
  
The man gave him a politely disinterested look.   
  
“Hi,” he answered, one hand still jotting down his compositions. “Can I help you with something?”  
  
“Well, actually,” Aiba fidgeted, a little disappointed by the aloofness. “I’m sort of lost.”   
  
The man spared him another look, this time with a hint of a raised brow.   
  
“Where are you trying to get to?”  
  
There was something about that high-pitched and reedy voice that made Aiba’s ears perk up, as if he had heard it before, as if once upon a time, it had been familiar to him.   
  
_But of course, that’s just nonsense_. Aiba brushed aside that prickling instinct.  _A lot of things feel familiar to me. It’s probably because I don’t know what_ familiar _’s actually supposed to feel like._  
  
“Do you have an address or anything?”   
  
Aiba shook his head, feeling very foolish. “I-I’m just trying to get home,” he said.  
  
“And you don’t know your own address?”   
  
The man was now staring at him with very clearly raised brows and a rather suspicious squint.   
  
“Are you trying to hit on me?” he asked accusingly.   
  
“What? No!” Aiba took a step back at the sudden flare of hostility in the stranger. “I just—I have trouble remembering things. And besides, I’m married!” He stuck out a defiant hand to show the stranger his dull-gold wedding band. “I promised to be with my Sho-chan forever.”  
  
Clearly unimpressed, the man’s eyes narrowed even more.  
  
“Nothing lasts forever,” he said snarkily.   
  
That sting of rejection felt, again, oddly familiar, even though Aiba knew it made no sense whatsoever. Why should he feel hurt by a rejection from a total stranger, anyway?   
  
“Sho-chan and I will,” he retorted defensively, a little annoyed at the man. “We promised each other when we took our vows. Though a person like  _you_  probably won’t know anything about real, solemn, wedding vows.”  
  
Something in the man’s eyes seemed to shrivel up and die, and for a brief second, he looked so forlorn that Aiba found his own heartbeat growing slightly sluggish in his chest.   
  
“Nothing lasts forever,” the strange man said again, one wistful finger ghosting over the strings of his instrument. The sound that came out was the hollowest, bitterest chord Aiba had ever heard.  
  
But as the hand left the guitar, it caught a straying ray of sun, and Aiba’s eyes were briefly blinded by a brilliant flash of amethyst and platinum-gold.   
  
An amethyst and platinum-gold  _wedding band_.   
  
Shocked, Aiba looked from the hand to the man, and then back to the hand again, trying hard to make sense of it all. This man was _married_? Well, that would explain why he didn’t want to be hit on, but why was he being so  _cynical_? Did he not take the solemn oath to love and cherish his husband for all of eternity? Wasn’t that what the ring was supposed to mean? And speaking of that ring, why did it have to shine so goddamn bright? Because it really was  _extremely_  bright, almost bordering on painful the way it tunneled straight through Aiba’s pupils and into his dumbstruck brain. Jets of rainbow shot from the depths of the little amethysts in dizzying patterns, pricking his eyes and making them water hotly. Nettled, Aiba wiped away the first inexplicable tear that budded off his lashes.   
  
Damn, but why did the sight of that ring have to _hurt_  so much?   
  
His head was beginning to throb unpleasantly, and random images were streaming unbidden through his mind: starlight through leaves, raindrops on playgrounds, a basketball splashing and grey puddles leaping into the air in a million glistening specks… There was a boy in every image, a boy with lonely eyes that flickered with hunger as he watched him, and Aiba’s mind reeled as he set off on a mental chase down a rabbit hole of what had to be his own forgotten memories.   
  
_Wait!_  He cried out to the mysterious boy as the scene changed again and again, leaving him no time to catch up or catch on. They were snuggled in a small futon, then perched on big tree, then giggling in a dark theater, then racing hand in hand through whips of frozen rain. With a cheeky wink, the boy stepped back and made to turn, like he was conducting the whole sequence of memories, like he knew Aiba was confused and took some impertinent pleasure in it.  _Stop!_  Aiba tried to grab him, still him, fix him, hold him, but he dissolved with the scene surrounding them and Aiba suddenly found himself sitting in a cold window, staring blankly as two moaning teenagers collapsed on top of each other, bodies writhing into a soft bed. ‘ _S-senpai!’_  One of them arched his neck, a deep mole on his chin quivering as he gasped out in abandon.  _‘J…’_  
  
Aiba’s brow wrinkled. Funny. He could have sworn that the boy had had a mole there, too.   
  
_‘…Promise me, please…’_  
  
The bed creaked some more, and Aiba’s temple began throbbing again as he watched the senpai “J” nuzzle his lover’s ear tenderly once things had calmed down. The gesture was too intimate for him to hear what was being whispered into those pink ears, but this was one part of his bizarre mental journey that Aiba really didn’t need  _words_  to understand; for a while, he simply watched, the tattoo of his pulse growing more and more painful, as the small face on the pillow flushed, blinked, and finally broke into a timid but determined smile.   
  
_‘I promise,’_  said the dimpled face, peering up at his straddler, and for one long moment, Aiba thought that the world itself had stopped spinning as the shy glow reached those honey brown eyes.  
  
_‘… Only you.’_  
  
Aiba’s heart plunged.   
  
And the dizzying avalanche that had been building inside his chest came crashing down.   
  
A curtain of ice fell across his eyes, and all went pitch black in a flash.  
  
~~~~~~~~       
  
Someone was singing when he came to his senses again. The tune sounded sort of familiar, though the lyrics were new.   
  
“We walked the aisle of stars,” it went. “Constel-la-tions in our eyes…”  
  
Aiba blinked at the nearness of it, and looked up to find the thin torso of the man from the bench hovering over him like a warm shadow. He wasn’t scowling anymore. Aiba relaxed, but then tensed up again immediately when his ear connected with something bony, something that felt remarkably like… a rib?   
  
The singing was abruptly interrupted as Aiba Masaki bolted upright from where he had just been lying (he realized with mortification) in an intimate embrace that  _wasn’t_ his husband’s.   
  
“You-what are you doing-?” he spluttered, springing to the farthest corner of the bench. “I don’t want to be seen like this-!”  
  
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have cried my name and spent the last ten minutes using my shirt as a hankie.” The man shrugged, but there was a hint of curiosity in his honey-colored eyes. “ _‘Wait, Nino, wait!’_ You kept saying that, even though I was clearly not going anywhere the way you were clutching at my collar. I tried telling you that, but you didn’t seem to hear me, so I figured I’d just sing something instead.”  
  
“I knew your name-? Wait, where’d you learn that song?” The melody was still tingling in Aiba’s mind, though he didn’t know what to make of it.  
  
“Nowhere,” said the man (or Nino, as he had just revealed). “The tune’s always been echoing in my head, though I can never seem to pin it down exactly. Why do you ask?”   
  
He threw Aiba an openly curious look.   
  
“Do I know you from somewhere?”   
  
Aiba began shaking his head in response, but then something caught his eye that made his entire body freeze in a stroke of chilling, cutting, cataclysmic epiphany.   
  
_No, it’s just a speck, an odd little protrusion… it c-can’t be…_  
  
“Th-that mole…” he whispered weakly, leaning in and reaching one hand up to caress it like some long-lost treasure. “When Nino smiled…it would stretch…”   
  
The flood of memories pouring into his mind was fierce, and his body was already beginning to sag under the weight of it all. In front of him, his beloved Nino was staring, eyes wide, lips parted, every detail of his face smooth and pale and curved just the way he remembered it.   
  
And it was painful, just how  _clearly_ he could remember it now.   
  
A tremulous, racking sob tunneled its way up to Aiba’s quivering mouth and tumbled out in a strangled rasp.  
  
“I fell, Nino,” he whispered, one finger tracing the contour of Nino’s unmoving jaw. “It was a long drop.”  
  
Nino fidgeted, his brow still furrowed, confused, and if the suspicious light glancing through those honey-brown eyes didn’t already break Aiba’s heart into a million shards, then the subsequent cry of alarm that broke the viscous air around them certainly did.    
  
“Masaki!” It rang out from behind, familiar, masculine, and full of a raw woundedness that twisted around Aiba’s heart like a thistle.   
  
“Masaki…” The voice continued brokenly. Aiba’s hand dropped from Nino’s face, and guiltily, he turned around to meet the fiery stare of his husband.   
  
“Is this how you forget me?” asked Sakurai Sho, and Aiba didn’t know what he was more afraid of, the withdrawal in Nino’s face or the blazing sorrow in Sho’s.   
  
“The stars—” he managed to gasp, before the grey curtain of tears consumed him, and he fell into an uncomfortable darkness again.    
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Sho didn’t know what had propelled him to start lying to his husband and stalking him when he was supposed to be working late in the office, but it had been going on for a week now, and even though Sho would die before admitting just how insecure he had gotten about Aiba’s recent eccentricities, he had to concede that perhaps six days of tailing his husband on meandering promenades through a rainy Chiba neighborhood was enough proof that there was no infidelity involved, after all.   
  
Still, for some reason, he hadn’t been able to come clean to Aiba. Something still niggled at his insides every time he saw hints of that weird _otherworldly_  quality in his husband, like when he’d turn his head around and gaze longingly up at the constellations out the window instead of burrowing his nose into Sho’s neck like he used to do when they snuggled after sex. Sometimes, Sho wondered if he even enjoyed the physical intimacy anymore. Aiba had been growing more distant during their love-making; he liked to close his eyes a lot now, and Sho couldn’t help but wonder if he was silently moaning another man’s name while they did it.   
  
And it wasn’t just all because of the sex, either. Aiba had started playing  _basketball_ , one of the many sports Sho intensely despised. What’s more, he had taken a liking to playing it outdoors, especially when it was raining cats and dogs, and when Sho tried to pull him back into the house, he’d just passed the ball and flashed a cheeky grin, as if expecting Sho to join him or something. As if Sho was someone who didn’t mind catching pneumonia or ruining his pressed shirt. As if Sho was someone who could actually  _play_.   
  
Sho had caught the genuine hint of confusion in his husband’s eyes when he had refused, and he couldn’t rest until he found out why it was there.   
  
_Why is Masaki acting like he thinks I’m someone else?_  
  
So even though it pained him to see the look of hurt in his husband’s eyes, he had continued his lies about long hours at work and kept up the routine of following and spying on him as he wandered through the grey neighborhoods of their town.   
  
Sho didn’t expect that there would  _actually_ be another man. He might’ve been insecure, but in his heart of hearts, he never truly believed that that same angel who had called him ‘Chipmunk’ and blushed so prettily as they shared their first kiss could possibly be a cheater too! He couldn’t imagine Aiba— _his_  Aiba—nestling into another man’s embrace or pressing those watery lips against unspeakable parts of another body and then coming back to welcome him home with a bright kiss every night.   
  
There were a lot of strange elements to Aiba’s nature, but malicious pretense was not one of them.   
  
Or so Sho had thought.   
  
The salaryman’s heart almost stopped in his chest when he saw his beloved husband lunging into some handsome musician’s arms, sobbing into his shirt and clutching at his hands like they were some sort of lifeline.   
  
Sho didn’t know what hurt more, the fact that Aiba was crying, or the fact that it wasn’t  _him_  that Aiba was crying to. The bud of jealousy flared up even more as he watched those slender fingers reach up to cup that stranger’s cheek. They were looking into each other’s eyes, and Sho stood rooted to his spot as his husband began an excruciatingly tender caress of the other man’s jaw.   
  
Aiba was whispering something, but Sho couldn’t hear it. Nor did he want to hear it.   
  
Then, Aiba began to lean in, and with horror, Sho leapt up and cried out before he could stop himself.   
  
“MASAKI!”  
  
Aiba wheeled round to face him, and Sho froze as he beheld his husband’s eyes. The starry quality was there again, just like the first time he met him, like all the universe was buried deep behind those pupils of chocolate, and Sho was nothing but an insignificant blot. But as he drew closer, the pain shot clearly from those cosmic depths, and he perceived the guilt that was etched there like a dark tattoo.   
  
“Is this how you forget me?” he asked, broken, his voice shaking because even though the question was oblique, he knew that the answer would be direct. Cruel, and direct.   
  
“The stars—” said Aiba, and for a split second, Sho could hear nothing but nervous blood pounding in his ears.   
  
Then, Aiba crumpled to the ground, and the moment was lost to the panicked shouts of both the stranger and Sho himself as they sprang forward simultaneously to catch him.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
This time, the dreamscape felt familiar. It was all coming back to him now, bit by bit. Who he was. Where he was from. How he had fallen.   
  
_Cold_ , he shuddered, remembering.  
  
His febrile mind reached farther to recall others just like him, their primordial glows mingling with his own and their silent laughter sparkling in rivulets of light as they all spun slowly in their eternal dance of the cosmos.   
  
_Brother_ … He tensed as one of them drew close in its orbit, and everything was suddenly flooded with a brilliant, icy-blue glare.   
  
The glare of the brightest star in the Northern skies.   
  
_I never meant to fall_ , he pleaded with it as it began engulfing him.  _I was just curious! It was only a little step astray from my orbit. Please... they already mistrust me. Don’t you turn against me as well!_  
  
The glare only grew more blinding, the hold on his body suffocating now. Without resisting, he wept. He could feel the fury, the disappointment, the bitter sting of betrayal… and it was all coming from his  _brother_.  His  _twin_  brother. The one who woke from the same ancient void, whose first tendrils of light had stretched out alongside his own in the beginning of days. They had learned the dance together, formed parallel orbits in the glistening mist of a young universe, and when the planets were born, they had both peered down at the peculiar human world, laughing as they spun around with the threads of human fate, weaving the grand tapestry of the stars, one over the other. Love, fear, death, and rebirth… They never had to _understand_  what they wove; the inexorable dance of eternity was never meant to be understood, after all. It just  _was_.   
  
Until that day he looked down, and a pair of eyes had looked beseeching back up.   
  
_Please_ , the eyes had implored, though he knew they couldn’t possibly know he was listening.   
  
_Let me see a shooting star. Just one will be enough. I only have one wish. Please._  
  
They winced as a loud slam sounded behind them.  
  
_Just one_ , the whisper resumed, the lonely pupils roaming the night.  _One star is all I need…_  
  
The next thing he knew, he was streaking across the night sky in a trail of blazing heat.   
  
He didn’t hear his brother’s anguished screams until he was already too far gone to stop.   
  
_‘Masaki!’_  was it had sounded like from within the human atmosphere.   
  
So ‘Masaki’ he became.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino closed the door to his apartment and sank into the nearest chair with a sigh.   
  
That man. That voice. That  _touch_.   
  
Tentatively, Nino brought a finger to the spot on his chin that was still tingling warm from the earlier contact.   
  
“Masaki.” He repeated the name the jealous husband had supplied, and shuddered when a strange current of pleasure coursed its way down his tongue.   
  
_How did you know my name?_  
  
He paused and shot a guilty look at a half-obscured portrait hanging on a wall by the bookshelf. Up until that day, there had only ever been one person for Ninomiya Kazunari, only one who could quicken his breath and widen his eyes and leave his delicate skin tingling like a spring bud in the rain. And it had already been a year since Nino last felt him, wasted and frail in a bed of white linen… a whole year since he held his beloved’s hand (once so full and muscular!) and felt the faint pulse slow steadily and then stop.   
  
The funeral had been small; Nino remembered standing in silent vigil beside the dark casket, looking down at the familiar yet distant face. He had always suspected that Jun was too good for him, and good things never lasted forever. It was just that with Jun, he had tried harder to convince himself otherwise.   
  
_‘Chin up, Nino.’_  Even on his deathbed, Jun had been stronger than him.   
  
_‘My eyesight is fading, and I want to see my favorite smile one last time._  
  
_‘Will you come closer, Nino?’_  
  
Nino obeyed, and tried his best to smile. Jun gave a weak chuckle.  
  
_‘If I wasn’t dying, I’d make you do much better than that.’_  
  
He stopped and closed his fading eyes.   
  
_‘Inevitable, Nino,’_ he murmured like he was soothing a frightened child.  
  
_‘You, I, this… all inevitable.’_  
  
One finger twitched, and he did not speak again.   
  
Nino’s subsequent devastation had been well-contained, or at least on the surface it was. He paid his respects, thanked all their friends for the joy they had brought into Jun’s short life, and insisted to everyone that he was fine, he just needed to be left alone for a bit. When alone, though, he couldn’t stand staying where Jun’s scent still lingered in the walls, so he spent his evenings out in a comfortably secluded corner of their neighborhood. A guitar was as good a companion as any person, he told himself as he strummed his strings and tried to drown the world out with visions of raining meteors and spinning constellations.   
  
Sometimes, he’d look up and see a particularly bright star in the night. Its cool light would pierce right through the wisps of cloud, and he’d feel a strange resonance well up inside him.   
  
Sometimes Nino wondered if stars had eyes, and if they ever wept for the humans who gazed up at them.   
  
_Like that Masaki…_  
  
Nino still couldn’t fathom where he could possibly know him from, but there had just been this poetic  _quality_  to him, like he was something that had walked out of a fairy tale, like he was concrete flesh and bone, but at the same time fluid and elusive. He had been speaking nonsense about falling and about stars, of course, and his eyes had sparkled so intensely they were like two starry reservoirs themselves.   
  
Nino just hadn’t been able to push him away.   
  
The young widower sighed again and looked back at the portrait of his lost Jun.   
  
_‘One day you’ll move on,’_  Jun had said to him.  _‘Meet new people. Make new friends.’_  
  
Damn, but why did Jun always have to be right?   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
As Masaki, he had imbued himself with the innocence of a child, and it wasn’t hard to let go of his long years when he began experiencing first hand all the things he had seen from above—every leap into the air, every drop of rain on his cheek, every swing of gravity as he suspended his body from the great branches of that tree. All of it delighted him, but none so much as the happy gleam that would enter the hopeful eyes of  _Nino_ , the boy who had wished him to life.   
  
Aiba would be lying if he said he didn’t use a little of his powers to get Nino to accept him at first. It had been necessary, after all. He couldn’t have Nino questioning him too much about his background, his family or what he did during school hours, and besides, it was sort of cute to watch the boy fall into a semi-worshipping attitude almost right away. It wasn’t exactly difficult for Aiba to realize how much Nino needed him; he could feel his eyes on him when he thought he wasn’t looking, and he could hear the sighs that escaped those lips every time he left, like Nino just couldn’t believe that he was  _real_ , or that his chance wish that unhappy night was actually coming true.       
  
Aiba liked Nino. He liked his unpredictability and his layers. Sometimes, Nino would ask him completely random questions (like that one time when they had been admiring the night skies, and the boy suddenly asked him about aliens! As if! Aiba had to stifle a giggle or two at the thought of those slimy three-eyed creatures that humans seemed to think inhabited Mars). Other times, he’d simply sit quietly with his chin propped up, thinking about “stuff,” and even though Aiba knew how easy it would be to simply probe the boy’s mind, he had always refrained from such an invasion. It was kind of nice  _not_ knowing every little detail of everyone’s life for once, he decided.    
  
But as the days went on, Aiba realized that the more time he spent with Nino, the less star-like he was becoming, and one day, he had been rather horrified to find that his otherworldly powers were only a fraction of what they were.  
  
Nino had been crying that night, and Aiba had been unable to stop it.   
  
He spent the rest of that night alone, and for the first time in his millennia-spanning life, he understood the terrifying human concept of  _insecurity_. What if Nino grew away from his influence? What if he, now powerless, lost Nino to someone else? Someone more real, someone who Nino could actually bring out to his family and introduce proudly as so-and-so from such-and-such. It hadn’t mattered much when he’d first met Nino, but now the question burned at his temples until they were sore:  _What if, this whole time, Nino was only with me because I’ve been keeping him here by force?_  
  
Distraught, he had slipped into Nino’s bed again the following night. A rare burst of fire seemed to erupt in his chest as he felt the thin figure trembling against his skin, and it travelled straight down to where he knew humans bonded with each other, right in that triangle between his legs.   
  
_Well, this is new._ Stars didn’t bond or reproduce, but Aiba could feel all the energy left from his long life in the void, and he could feel it churn inside him, wanting an outlet, a connection, an affectionate recipient.   
  
_So this is what it feels like._  
  
_Love, that is._  
  
He remembered how he used to laugh over it with his brother as they peered down together to watch the human lives unravel, each one following the course the stars had charted for them long before they were even born. He supposed now that some of it had been rather cruel.   
  
Nino was looking up at him with a hint of fear, skinny limbs pinned to the bed, that adorable little mole quivering with a ragged sob that moved his chin. Oh, in that moment, Aiba loved him so, _so_  much. He just wanted to claim him, to use that last spurt of power he had and consummate whatever complicated,  _un_ -star-like relationship they had been living through these past years.   
  
Only, he couldn’t bring himself to. Nino’s voice was a rich mix of bitterness, yearning, and confusion all rolled together, and no matter how close he leaned, Aiba just couldn’t bring himself to peel apart the layers, or to dissect this boy until he was nothing but a bare, vulnerable body under the gaze of his star.   
  
“Nothing lasts forever,” Nino had muttered, like it was some lonely mantra.   
  
Aiba rolled off him, hating himself as he caught a blinding flash from the low hanging star that always shone through their window.  
  
“The stars do,” he murmured, a silent thud in his heart.   
  
_I’m sorry, brother._  He curled Nino into the groove of his chest and felt a warm glow as the boy slid a tentative hand around his waist.   
  
_But I think I was doomed from the very beginning. You knew that, didn’t you?_  
  
The star simply faded behind a passing draft of cloud. When the wind cleared the night again, it was nowhere to be seen.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aiba woke up in the morning to the smell of coffee brewing and the sound of Sho’s feet pattering lightly on the kitchen floor.   
  
“Sho-chan?”   
  
He pulled on a sweater and slipped out of the bedroom. It looked like his husband had spent the night on the couch.  
  
_Of course he did._  Aiba winced as the more recent memories came back to him.  _I wonder if he can even bear to look at me now, after what he saw yesterday._  
  
Guiltily, he rounded the door that led to the dining room, and found himself face to face with a grim, waiting Sakurai.   
  
“Explain yourself.”  
  
The voice was cold, but the eyes betrayed an emotion more fragile. Sighing, Aiba took a seat across from his icy husband and began to talk.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“I fell in love,” he said, his voice like velvet, neither happy nor sad, just thick, like velvet. “I wasn’t supposed to, you see. Just like I wasn’t supposed to fall from the sky.”  
  
He gave a soft laugh, and set his hand into his husband’s.   
  
“It’s not easy, you know, falling. You get caught on all sorts of things on the way down. Clouds of ice, peaks of snow… In the end, I’d had to jump my way down.”  
  
Sho was trembling, his eyes wide with shock, and he clutched at Aiba’s hand, as if needing to reassure himself that there was real flesh in between his fingers.  
  
“He was furious, my brother was… Perhaps he’d already known what my fate would be the moment I made the leap. I always thought he looked a little sad from down here. Blue, as you’d call it. Though I suppose that if our roles were reversed, I’d feel the same,” he sighed, gazing with longing at the deep folds of sky that contained his brother. “It must have been pretty dull for him, dancing the dance alone.”  
  
“Can you return?” Sho asked timidly. “To-Up there, I mean.”  
  
Aiba shook his head and gave a rueful laugh.  
  
“I think I’ve been doomed already,” he said. “Up there or not, nothing can give me happiness now. I fell for somebody who was destined for someone else, and every instinct, every flame that burned in me I dedicated to him without reserve. But no one can overwrite what’s already written in the stars, and any marks I left on him were obliterated when he met the one he was meant for.   
  
“Well, his lover is dead now, and one day he’ll follow, passing beyond the sight of even the stars. But I’ll be left here to wander the ages, searching for him, yearning for him. I suppose that’s my punishment.”   
  
Wryly, he smiled up at the night, looking for that one cold star that was always watching him.   
  
“At least my brother granted me one mercy,” he said. “At least he let me forget, even if it was only temporary. And at least he allowed me to find you.”  
  
Sho’s lips broke with a sob, but Aiba merely tightened their clasped hands and continued his wistful monologue.  
  
“I never understood why I couldn’t just leave you. Or why you didn’t leave me. None of it ever felt  _right_ , you know, and I was always restless with you. But I guess it’s all clear now.”   
  
He looked into Sho’s eyes.   
  
“The stars never blazed a path for us, Sho-chan, only my brother. He willed you to approach me, and I guess he dipped a little out of his orbit, too.” Aiba’s tone grew mournful. “Of course, he’s still furious with me, but perhaps he’s feeling a bit of what we’d call _pity_ down here because he’s been watching over us, I know it. Even you felt him, didn’t you? On our wedding night…”  
  
Sho started, a rather uncomfortable feeling churning inside at the thought of his husband’s  _brother_  being witness to their bedroom activities.   
  
“Ah! Sho-chan, don’t resent him.” Aiba pinched his hand teasingly. “When you no longer love me, you’ll be grateful that he can—”  
  
“But I’ll always love you!” cried Sho, throwing himself into the fallen star’s arms. “‘ _Until death do us part, Masaki.’_  Ninomiya didn’t say those words, but I did! And I’ll always love you,  _always_ …”  
  
Aiba smiled. “Even though you know that every fiber of my being is programmed to love Nino? The stars have it written-”  
  
“Oh screw the stars! You love me, too!” shouted Sho, and Aiba was surprised at the sudden conviction in his voice. “Maybe not as devastatingly as you love Ninomiya, but you  _do_  love me, too. You put your hand in mine the night we first met, and your heart beat for me back then, just as it beat for him. And even though you say it’s Ninomiya you need to return to, even though your beautiful body pushes me away in its yearning for him, you know that it’s always the memories with me you end up clinging on to when you feel lost in the dark; it’s what you shared with me that you’re most afraid of losing.”  
  
“Sho, I don’t think…”  
  
“You  _love_  me, Aiba,” said his husband stubbornly, clenching a hand in his hair. “Don’t you dare say that you don’t. Don’t you _dare_ say that these past seven years meant nothing to you…”  
  
Sho was glaring at him now, and Aiba’s heart was once again pounding with fervor, just like that first night when Sho had put his arms around him in the deserted bus-stop (which was now coming back to Aiba’s mind like a vivid dream). He was confused at this reaction of his own body. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, after all. He was a star, a faraway glint to the humans of this world, a million-year-old child who had foolishly let a lonely earthling into his heart; he had fallen, and fallen hard. All the millennia of experience in the skies were screaming that he was doomed, and that it was only a matter of time before Sakurai Sho realized how tiring it would be to fight against fate.   
  
_I’m supposed to be dying a bitter, million-year death._  
  
He stroked his husband’s hair, fighting to restrain the swelling in his chest.   
  
_So why is my heart racing faster, and why are my limbs getting hotter?_  
  
_Why do I feel like I just sprang from the sun when I’m supposed to be fading to dust?_  
  
“I’m a star,” he said musingly.   
  
“You’re my husband,” Sho retorted. “And I don’t care if some stupid star law decrees that you should pine for Ninomiya forever; I don’t care for glittering constellations that say you should be miserable forever. He doesn’t even remember you! You’re  _mine_. I said I would take care of you for as long as I lived, and so I will, even if my life lasts only a fraction of yours. Even if you’ll forget me after it’s all over.”  
  
The swelling in Aiba’s chest was now making his throat tight. In an oddly choking but pleasant way.    
  
“Sho-chan…” he said weakly. “You know that there are still going to be days when I… misplace myself.”  
  
But Sho only laughed.   
  
“You mean days when you end up making hamburgers instead of asari clams? Or when you keep me up all night playing video games instead of having sex?” Sho chuckled in his hair warmly. “That’s not such a hard price to pay for having a beautiful star as a husband.”  
  
Aiba blinked at him, almost certain that he had misheard, because surely— _surely_ —Sho had not forgotten how he had moaned Nino’s name in the darkness of their bedroom, or how he had clutched him, whispering, begging,  _please please let me love you, let me love you_ … Surely Sho remembered the rage, the betrayal, the cold fights… and yet… that feeling in his chest—that choking, tingling feeling that was bringing heat to the his eyes— that feeling suddenly crossed an unknown threshold and overwhelmed him, sending him tumbling forward into a bruising kiss on his husband’s sweetly waiting lips. Their hands ran through each other’s hair, and their noses collided and flattened against the force of their passion, as though a dancing fire had been kindled where their lips met, and they were both straining to rub against each other more, to make more friction, more heat, more desperate confirmation that their unordained love was every bit as real as those that were written firmly in the stars.    
  
“Is this it, then?” Sho moaned in between their fervent kisses. “Do you choose me, Masaki?”  
  
“Yes, yes,” whispered Aiba right back at him. “I choose you, Sho-chan. Screw the stars, I choose you! Memories, Nino… we’ll do our best to cast them aside.” He drew his husband in tighter, his heart now shining in full blossom for the man who had saved him, loved him, and was willing to continue loving him even though he would never be able to shake completely free of Nino.   
  
“Then let me take you away, Masaki.” Sho brushed another kiss along his cheek huskily. “Away from the past, we'll go somewhere sunny, where the nights are short.”  
  
Aiba laughed as he returned the kiss.   
  
“Where the nights are short,” he agreed, before Sho's lips honed in to claim his a third time.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino still couldn’t decide if it was good or bad that the husband of that curious Masaki man had showed up that day. It wasn’t that he had been seriously contemplating anything sordid like an affair, but Masaki had had a nice touch, and Nino, after several days of soul-searching in front of Jun’s portrait, had decided that perhaps there  _did_  exist a world worth exploring outside of his husband’s jarring absence.   
  
He would probably never find that Masaki again, thanks to the timely interruption of the husband, but perhaps that was good thing. What he needed now wasn’t a  _new_  person to pour his heart into, after all. What he needed was simply that push, that incidental nudge that would re-open his heart to the loving friends his Jun had brought into his life already.   
  
For the first time since the funeral, Nino accepted a longstanding invitation to dine with one of their old baseball mates. The man was married and had kids now, but when Nino sat down at the table, it was like they were back on the high school diamond playing catchball. Neither one of them brought up Jun, but strangely enough, Nino could feel his presence, warm and reassuring, just as it had been when he was alive.  
  
_Maybe some things_ do  _last forever._  
  
Nino got home, and slipped off his shoes smoothly. Then his eyes narrowed. There was a box sitting in the middle of his living room with a note on it.    
  
_PLAY ME_ , said the handwriting.  
  
Alarmed, he glanced around at the windows and doors. There wasn’t an intruder, now was there? But everything seemed still and safe.   
  
Relaxing, Nino bent down on his knees and flipped open its flaps.  
  
“Oh God…” he gasped.   
  
Inside was a harmonica. It was lined with a dark wood trim that had patterns of a peculiar red berry etched on it and then painted with dye; on the back side there were words carved into the body:   
  
_“A Song that Exists Anywhere”_  
  
Trembling, he brought it up to his lips.   
  
The first note came out involuntarily, almost as soon as his lips touched the mouthpiece, and from there on, the rest of the melody flowed like smooth honey drawn from the depths of his soul. It was like he wasn’t conscious as he played, like it wasn’t even him playing the harmonica but rather the  _harmonica_  playing  _him_. He felt his heart quiver, soar, dip and contract as the notes resounded in a rich web of illusions. In certain parts, he was almost certain that the music was making him hallucinate, too: two boys, rainbow skies, and billowing clouds of cosmic dust.   
  
_This is it._  
  
_This is the melody I’ve been looking for all this time._  
  
The harmonica dropped from his lips, and he set it carefully back within its box, the beauty of its sound still echoing in his ears. There was a full feeling in his chest, like the kind of feeling he got back when Jun would slip into their bed late at night and spoon their bodies together until they were both squished up in a tiny corner of pillows and blankets.   
  
With a genuine smile, Nino turned his eyes up and rested them on the portrait of his late lover.  
  
_Forever, Jun._  
  
And he really believed it this time.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
END


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